Thursday, March 28, 2024

HH Confirms Commencing Legal action against Times and Daily Mail

Share

Opposition UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema arrives to attend a court case at the magistrate's court complex in Lusaka
Opposition UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema

OFFICIAL STATEMENT

January 7th, 2016

HH SUES TIMES OF ZAMBIA, ZAMBIA DAILY, INDIVIDUAL JOURNALSTS AND PF OFFICIALS

We wish to confirm that we have commenced legal proceedings against Times of Zambia, Zambia Daily Mail, and media personal in their individual capacities before the High Court over what we consider are defamatory articles they recently published.

Others we have taken to court are some senior PF officials such as PF Secretary General Davies Chama, PF Deputy Chairperson for Information and Publicity Sunday Chanda, and PF Lusaka Province youth chairperson Kennedy Kamba.

We have asked the Lusaka High Court to order all the defendants to pay K1 million each in damages for alleged defamation of character and further restrain them from publishing similar defamatory words against us.

In the Times of Zambia legal suit, we are citing articles published on December 28, 2015, in which the newspaper published a story under the headline “PF slams tribal remarks” and another article accusing us of having castigated a chieftainess headlined “Refute tribal remarks HH told “, which article was published in theSunday Times of Zambia on December 27, 2015.

For the Zambia Daily Mail, we are citing articles the newspaper published on December 27, 2015 under the headline ‘Its shameful to welcome Bembas-HH and another one on December 28, 2015 alleging that we were not good leaders because we has continued to issue tribal remarks.

We feel the words complained of were in their ordinary and natural meaning understood to mean that we were not fit to be president of UPND and let alone, Republican president.

That we are tribalist who will never preside over critical affairs of the country and that we are bitter because Mr. Chama visited the Southern Province.

We have asked the court to grant us an injunction restraining the defendants, their agents, servants or employees from commenting, publishing, and uttering similar words against us.

We wish to request members of the general public to please refrain from commenting on these issues, as doing so will now amount to contempt of courts.

Hakainde Hichilema
UPND President

29 COMMENTS

  1. Why do you keep referring to yourself as we?

    “We feel the words complained of were in their ordinary and natural meaning understood to mean that we were not fit to be presidet of UPND and let alone, Republican president.”

    • Leadership and Collective actions demands that you avoid using the word “I”. it was my advise to HH before 2015 January elections to avoid saying “i will do this and that” to start using the word “we will do this and that”…………….Its part of enhance participation and i mean participation NOT tokenism

    • The Post Editorial comment 19/01/2015:…..it doesn’t make sence for Dipak to try and distance Hakainde from Munkombwe’s (tribal)statements when he himself is comfortable with them,sees nothing wrong with them. Clearly,it is Dipak who is disturbed by Munkombwe’s statements and not Hakainde himself.Anyway,Dipak is in the company of people whose political DNA he does not really understand.By denouncing Munkombwe,Dipak thought he was doing the right thing when he was actually offending the people he is helping to campaign and win an election.

    • Fake bishop Chomba suffered from verbal diarrhoea during the elections but when sued he was reduced to a soaked chicken. I now wonder if the court sawed his stinking mouth shut.

      Next its Chama, Sunday chanda and Tayali to be reduced to soaked chicken. ?Their careless mouths will invite maningi trouble for them.

      HH has put PF legal fraternity in a quandary . Should the PF appointed judges rule in favour of Chama, their credibility together with that of the Zambian courts will be reduced to that of the kangaroo courts.

      We await to see how this legal conundrum will unfold in the eyes of all well meaning Zambians and potential investors.

      Freedom of speech is allowed only when what you are saying is absolutely true and when challenged in court, you can defend it with tangible…

  2. We wish to request members of the general public to please refrain from commenting on these issues, as doing so will now amount to contempt of courts……so the story is true and he did it to silence the public from debating his character as a public figure who is subjected to scrutiny

  3. This is nonsense. How do sue the whole country. By implication everybody should not talk about HH ills and tribal vibes up to the case is disposed off. What sort of a character is HH. This is what someone said earlier that HH just wants to shut the mouths of the Zambians from discussing HH and UPND tribal issues. How can only one party in this country be always caught up in tribal talk everyday? Something is wrong

    • STOP COMPLAINING THAT NOW YOU HAVE BEEN SUED. HOPE YOU GATHER ENOUGH STRENGTH IN THIS MATTER. HH IS GENIUS AND KNEW WHEN TO HAMMER THEM THE MOST.

    • Same chaps calling him a tribalist, then he takes you to court to prove your allegations, you are still complaining. What is wrong with PF cadres? Just prove it court or keep quiet sha!!!

    • @Miya,
      @Kabu,
      I think you have missed the plot. Lets start from square A. Under the rule of law, you are free to say or write whatever you wish on one condition: – IT HAS TO BE TRUE. If you are sued for telling the truth, you simply prove and use that truth as your defence, and you walk away free. If however what you say is NOT TRUE, then ….eeerr … lets just say you will learn the hard way what LIBEL and SLANDER mean in Court.

  4. Very shameful, we are under some kind of decree. Where to mother Zambia vis-a-vis freedom of of expression, freedom speech, and with such edicts?

    • @Chitutuma.
      An opportunity has availed itself for the Chitutumas of this World to prove the accusations and thereby stand up for freedom of of expression, freedom speech,etc… Whats so shameful about an opportunity like that??

  5. Same chaps calling him a tribalist, then he takes you to court to prove your allegations, you are still complaining. What is wrong with PF cadres? Just prove it court or keep quiet sha!!

    • What is the meaning of humility? You are the same people who claim that EL is humble and yet when you look at his suits, hear is insults, hiring jets to USA you see the opposite. Let me help you, my friend. To be humble is all about being ordinary no matter your station in life and that’s what HH is all about. You see dirt in truly humble people and humility in pompous thieves!

  6. Clear indicators of what we expect of this man if elected zambian president! People will not be allowed to say any ill of him! Is it not dictator in the making?

    • You are a paradox itself. You are the same people who praised Michael Sata for being foolish by suing people even when he was President. Now that its HH who has sued its bad because he is aspiring to be President? Grow up!

    • @Kabu,
      I think you have missed the plot. Lets start from square A. Under the rule of law, you are free to say or write whatever you wish on one condition: – IT HAS TO BE TRUE. If you are sued for telling the truth, you simply prove and use that truth as your defence, and you walk away free. If however what you say is NOT TRUE, then ….eeerr … lets just say you will learn the hard way what LIBEL and SLANDER mean in Court.

  7. WATCH OUT BA HH BALEISA. I HAVE HEARD OF THIS BEFORE. I KNOW EVEN AFTER 2016 ELECTIONS WE WILL KEEP ON HEARING THAT BA HH BALEISA. PEOPLE ITS SIMPLE TO EVERY ZAMBIAN HH IS NOT THE ALTERNATIVE FOR THIS COUNTRY BUT DISASTER. I CAN DESCRIBE HIM BUT FOR NOW NO.

  8. The truth hurts who doesn’t know ichilema & his tribal politics. the reason why is suing is because it’s true this man is not only a tribalist but also a sadist, satanic……… even if he has sued political cases don’t go anyway. this ichilema has been on record calling sata chimbwi no plan, was he sued? the answer is no. that’s how his tribe is. not long ago we saw what happened on the chuunda chaitwa it was the first time in history of zambia. did u hear bembas react when mwanawasa called them stinking thieves?

  9. i thot its you the same pipo who were challenging hh to sue these pipo in order to prove his innocence.what has gone wrong again ba pf sympathisers?you sounding so foolish its like you do.t reason properly mwe.

  10. I said it 35hours ago to remind Chanda about the where about of chella.you see now .Good move President HH.

  11. he is not suing the whole country, can’t you read. Let Chama and these reporters prove to the court their stories. Integrity is very important when reporting, reporters are supposed to check and prove stories before reporting thereby misleading people. We don’t want to be reading fake stories from unverified sources.

Comments are closed.

Read more

Local News

Discover more from Lusaka Times-Zambia's Leading Online News Site - LusakaTimes.com

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading