President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika’s government has banned all demonstrations organized by Human Right Defenders Coalition (HRDC), faceofmalawi can reveal.
The development comes barely a week after President Mutharika ordered the Malawi Defence Force (MDF) and the Malawi Police Service (MPS) to use force in stopping the airport and border demonstrations planned for this week.
This has been disclosed in a statement released on August 26, 2019 signed by Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mark Botomani made available to faceofmalawi reporter.
According to Botomani, the decision to ban the said demonstrations has been arrived at considering that all recent demonstrations have turned out to be riotous.
“Government would like to inform the public that it has decided not to grant permission for demonstrations planned by the Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) to go ahead from Wednesday, 28th August 2019.
“As such, Government would like to warn all citizens to ignore any notice of demonstrations and not take part in the same,” reads in part the statement.
He added: “Government is convinced that conveners of these demonstrations deliberately abuse the right to demonstrate to achieve other ulterior agendas.
“Going forward, no permission to hold demonstrations will be granted by the relevant authorities until such a time when it is possible for the conveners to organize peaceful demonstrations.
“Government has an obligation of ensuring that all rights are safeguarded and no single right is used to violate other rights.”
Meanwhile the statement has attracted mixed reactions on the social media with many accusing Mutharika of turning to a dictator.
