ZAMBIAN GOVERNMENT USES COVID-19 TO CURTAIL MEDIA FREEDOMS
WHILST countries are implementing lock downs to slow the spread if the novel Corona Virus 19, Zambia has refused to lock down the country insisting that a lock down will hurt the poor. Instead the pandemic has become an opportunity for the government to gag the independent free media. The Zambian government through the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) on 9th April 2020 cancelled the broadcast license of Prime Television, a vibrant private television station which broadcasts from Lusaka in what government called public interest. Prime TV is a popular platform which carried unbiased news and discussions and the only media house that gave wide coverage to the opposition and civil society in Zambia against the increasingly unpopular and biased government controlled Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC). The opposition has asked the diplomatic community to put pressure on President Lungu to re-open the institution further alleging th