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HRDC Postpones December Demos

The Human Rights Defenders Coalition-HRDC has postponed Friday demonstrations which aimed to push the Malawi Police Service to act on officers implicated in the Msundwe saga and Buleya Lule killing under police custody.

HRDC chairperson Timothy Mtambo has told Zodiak the protests have been moved to January 09, 2020 following feedback from concerned members on the timing for the protests.

He said the coalition wants justice on the perpetrators of abuses on Msundwe women and girls as well as the killing of Buleya Lule earlier while in police custody.

“We received feedback from most Malawians that some have gone out for holidays, so this being a very important issue, they asked for a change to a suitable date when people are back from their holidays,” said Mtambo.

He said HRDC being an institution that listens to people, and that the issues at hand are serious in nature, they had no choice but to postpone the protests to next month.

Mtambo added that on 09 January, they are planning to woo at least one million people in Lilongwe to demonstrate all the way to Police headquarters in Area 30 in the city to show their anger over the Msundwe and Buleya Lule killing incidents.

Meanwhile, the European Union-EU has called for a swift and decisive reaction by the competent national authorities on the allegations of sexual violence by police officers as released by the MHRC. 

“The heads of mission join those looking for a swift and decisive reaction by the competent national authorities, while providing urgently all the necessary full support to the survivors/victims of those attacks,” reads the statement in part.

According to a report from the Malawi Human Rights Commission-MHRC, Police officers raped 13 women, defiled a girl and sexually assaulted three under-18 girls on October 8, 2019 during an operation the law enforcers had in the areas.

And in its May report into the death of Lule, who was a suspect in the abduction of a person with albinism and died in Police custody, the MHRC named some police officers who allegedly had a hand in his death.

Not a single officer among those who were deployed on the mission has been disciplined internally.
 

    

 

 

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