Mfomfo Nkhambule, the dissident who was threatened with
torture by state authorities if he continued to write newspaper articles criticising
King Mswati III, is running
to be elected Speaker of the Swaziland House of Assembly.
Nkhambule attracted international attention in 2008 and
2009 for outspoken articles he wrote each week in the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper.
Nkhambule specialised in criticising Swazi Royalty and
the traditionalists who support King Mswati, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan
Africa’s last absolute monarch.
Nkhambule , who had formerly been Health and Social
Welfare Minister in the king’s government, was hauled in by Swaziland’s state
police and threatened with
torture if he continued to criticise the king. He was later dropped from
his traditional
regiment, threatened with banishment
from his homeland, and his family
was threatened because he refused to be silenced.
In January 2009,
he told the Times he was taken in
by state police. ‘They questioned me over the articles I have been writing. I was also
warned that the articles were now taking a subversive slant and cautioned me
that I was now skating on thin ice.’
The Times reported, ‘He said
they impressed upon him that the articles were no longer just a column but were
starting to hit on the authorities and could incite people to revolt against
the head of state and this was beginning to pose a security threat.’
‘Nkhambule said the officers informed him that as much as the
country had a new constitution, there were still laws that could be used
against him, which were enacted before independence and they had very serious
consequences.’
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Swaziland chapter reported
at the time that the Times’ Managing Editor Martin Dlamini denied he was
under any pressure from state authorities. Dlamini said Nkhambule’s column had
simply been affected by the routine changes the newspaper was making with
regards to content.
Nkhambule told MISA that he personally took his article to the Times
for publication but was told of the ban without reasons being given.
‘I then received information from other quarters that authorities have
ordered the Times to stop publishing my articles. Whatever threat they
received might have been very serious as they simply told me that my articles
will no longer be published with no reasons being given,’ he said.
The ban on Nkhambule came in the same week that the Times was
forced to make an abject apology to King Mswati after publishing an
essentially correct report that he had purchased up to 20 armoured cars for the
use of himself and his wives.
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