Report faults Malawi on human rights abuse
United States Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour 2014 Country Report on Human Rights Practices has faulted Malawi on human rights abuse as evidenced by, among many cases, government’s failure to bring to justice police officers who were charged with manslaughter in July 2011 anti-government demonstration and on Robert Chasowa’s death.
The report, which is based on the occurrences of 2014, and was posted on Malawi’s US Embassy website on Friday, June 26, states that police arbitrarily shot and killed innocent people in the course of their work mostly because of indiscipline and poor training.
Reads the report in part: “Three police officers charged with manslaughter in the 2012 death of Edson Msiska while in police custody and nine police officers arrested in connection with the 2011 deaths of anti-governmenta demonstrators remained free on bail. As of November [2014], no trial dates had been set for either of these cases.
“By year’s end, a trial date was not yet set for eight police officers arrested in the 2011 death of student activist Robert Chasowa, and they remained free on bail…”
However, Solicitor General, Janet Banda, has said some of the information in the report is not correct as some of the cases such as those involving the July 2011 anti-government demonstrators’ deaths have been in court since last year.
On the case of the death of Polytechnic student Chasowa, Banda says the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) ordered another investigation to be conducted because the first one was not properly done.
Said Banda: “The earlier investigation was not properly done, it had a lot of loopholes and after going through it, the DPP ordered another thorough investigations that were going to seal those loopholes because no one wants to go to court with a case they are going to lose.”
According to the report, police were inefficient, poorly trained and corrupt as evidenced by involvement of Malawi Defence Force (MDF) for support in internal security although the latter’s responsibility is external security. It also notes impunity as another problem.
Although this was the case, the report says, the inspector general of police remained committed to the professionalisation of the MPS.
The Internal Affairs Department of the MPS which investigates police misconduct, including whether killings and other misconduct occurred in the line of duty and were justifiable, consisted of only three professional staff. And although an independent police complaints commission is provided for by law, it was not yet established by year’s end. n
