STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA STATE OF THE MEDIA IN ZAMBIA that the station would continue to fulfil its mandate of informing, educating and entertaining it’s audience without the fear of intimidation while upholding professionalism.” To date, the Felix Mutati’s MMD faction has not tendered in an apology to United Voice Radio. 5.0. Freedom of expression online – Mainstream media/cyber space In line with the debate on freedom of expression, on 14th March 2019, the News Diggers! Publication carried a headline, “Media Freedom In Zambia Under Threat, Observes UK.” This was in relation to the UK Minister of state for Africa foreign office and DFID, Harriet Baldwin’s sentiments in a Tweet that freedom of expression and media in Zambia is under threat as evidenced by the closure of Prime TV. In her tweet, Baldwin expressed concern over the closure of Prime TV especially that it was happening in a country with a promising democratic record to uphold democratic tenets. Prior to this, Baldwin had visited Zambia in July 2018 and observed that Zambia had a promising democratic record which she thought needed to be upheld. 6.0. Other developments 6.1 Continued incarceration of Derrick Sinjela In the last quarter of 2018, the Supreme Court of Zambia jailed journalist and blogger, Derrick Sinjela for 18 months for contempt. The Court sentenced Sinjela for his remarks over the Savenda Vs Stanbic case in which corruption and irregularity were alleged. In the first quarter of 2019, calls for his pardon grew loud with stakeholders calling upon the Republican President Mr. Edgar Lungu to pardon Mr. Sinjela. Among the voices advocating for Mr. Sinjela’s release was Dawood Salim a freelance journalist based in Lusaka. Writing in the Lusaka Times publication of 24th January, Mr. Salim Dawood penned a letter addressed to the President in which he appealed to him to invoke his discretion on the prerogative of mercy and pardon Derrick Sinjela (refer to appendix 1 for a copy of Mr. Dawood’s letter) Mr. Sinjela is still incarcerated in a Zambian prison. 29