KARONGA-(MaraviPost)-Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) Karonga Chapter has announced that it has called off the demonstrations which were initially planned to take place from today Wednesday to Friday in the district.
According to a letter from HRDC penned on 5th November, 2019, to the Police Commissioner in the district, the decision to cancel the demos has been arrived at upon noticing that the police have begun to respond postively to the grievances outlined in a previous letter of notice presented to the same and the District Commissioner.
Confirming the cancellation of the protests on Tuesday, HRDC Treasurer, Chifundo Kapesa, said the police in the district have given back a public address system and a vehicle which they confiscated during one of the previous demonstrations.
“In fact, the demonstrations which were slated for tomorrow up until Friday in Karonga District have been cancelled simply because some of the concerns which we presented towards the police have start being sorted out. So, we thought of giving them ample time at least for this new administration in office and see as to how far we are going with them. So, we decided to call off the demonstrations up until further notice,” said Kapesa.
Kapesa also hinted that the organisation will announce soon dates for tribute demonstrations to Justin Phiri, who was arrested together with twenty others, during one of previous demos; and then died in September while in the hands of the police in Mzuzu.
A postmortem conducted by a private pathologist, Professor George Liomba revealed that Justin Phiri died of multiple untreated wounds sustained through physical assault.
Commenting on the cancellation of the demos, Northern Region Police Publicist, Morris Chapola simply said it is a good decision.
HRDC has been conducting nationwide demonstrations since June this year in a bid to force MEC Chairperson, Dr Jane Ansah and all the commissioners to resign for allegedly marring the 21 May tripartite elections.
