The Joint Civil Society Platform on Good Governance (JCSPGG) has said it will hold peaceful protests in seven districts across the country.
The grouping wanted to conduct demonstrations on 23 August with the aim of preaching peace and denouncing violence but on the 20th August, 2019 it received summons from the Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA), National Oil Company of Malawi (NOCMA) and the Airport Development Limited (ADL) through an interlocutory injunction restraining the group from holding demonstrations in airports and border posts.
On Friday, the High Court in Blantyre barred demonstrations in airports and borders.
Speaking at a press briefing organised by the group at Golden Peacock Hotel on Saturday, JCSPGG Chairperson Bright Kampaundi said the platform will continue with plans to spearhead calls for peace and non-violence through a peaceful march and vigils in seven districts of Lilongwe, Blantyre, Karonga, Mzuzu, Mchinji, Mangochi and Mwanza.
Kampaundi said peace cannot kept by force but it can be achieved by understanding since peace is a climate of freedom.
He then condemned the Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) for planning to conduct demonstrations in borders and airports.
“It has become an open secret that continued calls for civil disobedience by Human Rights Defence Coalition (HRDC) are aimed at disturbing peace and order through the protests that are backed by UTM and Malawi Congress Party (MCP) that have ended up in anarchy and civil unrest,” he said.
According to Kampaundi, HRDC‘s plans to protest at borders and airports were aimed at impairing the functions of the government by limiting fuel supply in the country, reducing tax revenue collection and grounding flights to make Malawians suffer at the expense of satisfying few individuals who are fighting tooth and nail to get into power through undemocratic process.
He also said that the petrol-bomb attack at HRDC Chairperson Timothy Mtambo’s house seemed to have been deliberately planned by Mtambo himself.
HRDC joined by UTM and MCP supporters have been conducting protests demanding the resignation of Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chairperson Jane Ansah.
But Kampaundi said he does not know why HRDC want Ansah to step down since the issue of the May elections is still in court.
Kampaundi then said that the grouping is aware of what HRDC Chairperson Timothy Mtambo and MCP Lazarus Chakwera agreed indoors about causing violence prior to the elections.
Patience helps. Violence begets violence. In life violence is done by people who have comfort somehow because those struggling are more absolved in irking a living from the little they can lay their hands on. Simply put they have no strength to throw stones.