A Zambian court has temporarily blocked the deportation of a British writer who was ordered to be deported for allegedly ”insulting” President Levy Mwanawasa in his weekly column in a private newspaper, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
Patrick Matibini said he obtained a ”a stay of execution order” on Monday night from the Lusaka high court after he filed an application.
”The judge has granted us the order pending the hearing of the main case at a date to be announced later,” said Matibini.
The Zambian government on Monday gave Roy Clarke, a newspaper columnist, one day to leave for supposedly deriding Mwanawasa in his last article in The Post newspaper.
The article, modelled along the lines of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, referred to the person in charge of the farm as ”Mawelewele”, or fool in the local Nyanja dialect.
The article, published last Thursday, also referred to ministers as ”long-legged giraffes, red-lipped, long-figured baboons.” Clarke has lived in Zambia for many years and is married to a prominent Zambian women’s rights activist.
On Tuesday, Fred Mmembe, the editor of The Post, re-published Clarke’s article in full but put his own byline.
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) watchdog meanwhile appealed to Mwanawasa in a statement to rescind the decision to deport Clarke, saying it was contrary to human rights and press freedom. – Sapa-AFP