Arresting clergy not solution - EYA

POLICE on the Copperbelt must not aggravate the situation by arresting the clergy on account of inciting people over suspected ritual murders because we need each other to end the rot, the Evangelical Youth Alliance (EYA) has said.

Speaking to the Daily Nation yesterday following the arrest of Bishop Joseph Kazhila EYA executive director Moses Lungu said the police was trying to bring enmity between Government and the church and the clergy yet they two were partners in development. Rev. Lungu said there was too much intolerance within the police command which Government must guard against adding that the arrest of Bishop Kazhila could misinterpreted as the state trying to gag the church from speaking against social evils that befall the common Zambian. He said instead of rushing to arrest Bishop Kazhila, the church should have engage him and make him realise he was wrong if at all there was anything he did against the law but that politicising national issues and arresting church leaders will not help resolve the security situation on the Copperbelt. “The truth of the matter is that the government has thus far failed to arrest the people behind a spate of killings which have rocked the Copperbelt. Bishop Kazhila was within his rights as a church leader and concerned citizen to air out his concerns over these killings. “The police command on the Copperbelt must not become too emotional or too puffed up with politics but must be cautious so that they do not create a situation that will make the whole issue turn out to be a fight between the state and the church,” Rev. Lungu said. He said the security situation on the Copperbelt was a source of worry to all citizens and that the police must not aggravate it further by making unnecessary attacks and threats on innocent citizens while murderers continued eluding them. He said this was not the time to create dissent between the church and the state but time to find long-lasting solutions to the problem because people in affected towns were no longer free to go about doing their businesses for fear of being attacked. He said if police had contained the situation, there would have been no need for communities to come up with neighbourhoods watch groups specifically to deal with suspected ritualists and that when people voice out their concerns, the police must not be too quick to effect arrests in the name of inciting residents to rise.

The security situation on the Copperbelt is a source of worry to all citizens and the police must not aggravate it further by making unnecessary attacks and threats on innocent citizens.