Two days after a Zambian court threw out the obscenity charges brought against the Post News Editor Chansa Kabwela, Lusaka Magistrate David Simusamba has ruled that the newspaper’s owner and editor, Fred M’membe, must nonetheless defend himself against “contempt” charges for an op-ed published in his paper about the Kabwela case. M’membe’s trial is now set for 4 December.

Magistrate Simusamba found that the magistrate in the Kabwela case had forbidden media houses from covering the case. But, Magistrate Simusamba noted, the editorial piece in question touched on the case, which is grounds to put the Post and its editor “on their defense,” IPI was told in an email from the Post.

In the allegedly contemptuous opinion piece, Cornell University Professor Muna B. Ndulo described the process against Kabwela as a “comedy of errors” and wrote that the obscenity case, which was widely decried as a politically motivated attack on the newspaper, was detrimental to Zambia’s image abroad.

Section 116 of the Zambian penal code criminalizes speech or writing that could prejudice opinion regarding an ongoing judicial proceeding.

“Contempt of court is a charge that has been used by tyrannical regimes the world over against press freedom,” M’membe told IPI from Lusaka today. “We hope the judicial process will handle the case in a manner that preserves and promotes press freedom.”

M’membe added, “The whole world is watching how this case is treated.”
“We remain hopeful that Fred M’membe and The Post will have a fair trial and will be eventually acquitted of these charges,” said IPI Deputy Director Alison Bethel McKenzie. “Nonetheless, it is disappointing that this case will even go to trial, particularly since the Zambian courts rightly threw out the case against Chansa Kabwela.”
Charges have been dropped against the Post Deputy Managing Editor Sam Mujuda and Ndulo, who are currently outside the country and therefore outside the court’s jurisdiction; however, the outcome of M’membe’s case could determine whether charges are brought against Mujuda and Ndulo on their return to Zambia, M’membe told IPI.

Kabwela, a news editor at the Post, was charged last June with distributing obscene material after she sent photographs of a woman giving birth in the street to the country’s vice president and health minister in order to draw attention to the consequences of a health sector strike. The baby later died.

In a ruling hailed by IPI as a triumph for press freedom, Lusaka magistrate Charles Kafunda on Monday ruled that Kabwela had no case to answer, because the prosecution had failed to prove that the pictures were obscene.