Fourteen disappearances and 71 arrests: Human Rights Watch calls for an end to the post-election crackdown, as State House answers Ian Khama and the treason bail ruling nears

Human Rights Watch put numbers on the weeks after the election on Sunday. In a report datelined Johannesburg and published on 1 November, the organisation said it had documented 14 cases in August that appear to have been enforced disappearances, with people held for days while the authorities denied having them; 61 cases in which detainees, their lawyers or relatives allege beatings or other violent abuse during arrest or in custody; and 71 cases of opposition members, supporters and critics arrested on charges that may be politically motivated or held for long periods without charge. Eighteen people, it said, have been charged with treason, two of them also with sedition, and treason is not bailable. Six critics had their passports cancelled on 11 September, among them the academic Sishuwa Sishuwa. Seven people the organisation spoke to, including lawyers and a journalist, said they had fled their homes or gone into hiding.

Much of the report retraces events already on the public record and sets them side by side. It records that judicial services were suspended and court premises cordoned off from 24 to 28 August, which the police described as an intelligence-led and preventive measure, and that this coincided with the window for challenging the presidential result. It records the raid on Brian Mundubile's home on 14 August in which the former minister Mutotwe Kafwaya was killed, the Inspector General's account that officers met gunfire and returned fire, and the fact that Kafwaya's fate was not confirmed until 19 August after his wife petitioned for habeas corpus. It records the 43 opposition election monitors detained on 14 August whose lawyers said the police denied holding them for eight days, and whose release a Lusaka court ordered on 10 September after 21 days. Mundubile and his running mate Makebi Zulu were arrested on 27 August and are charged with treason and sedition.

Zambia's government should break this dangerous cycle of repression.
— Ashwanee Budoo-Scholtz, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch, in the report released on Sunday 1 November

What the government has said

The report does not say that Human Rights Watch wrote to the government, and it quotes no reply addressed to it. What it does quote is the government's public response to the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of assembly and association in September, which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation called inaccurate, undiplomatic and short of the standards of objectivity expected of UN mandate holders. The ministry said then that membership of an opposition party does not place a person beyond the reach of the law, nor does it convert a criminal suspect into a political detainee, and that Zambia's courts are open to test any claim of unlawful detention. Human Rights Watch's recommendations are a halt to the crackdown, access to lawyers and medical care for detainees, the release of anyone arbitrarily held, accountability for security forces and an independent investigation into the 14 August raid and Kafwaya's death. It also notes that Zambia takes a seat on the UN Human Rights Council for the 2027 to 2029 term.

does not place a person beyond the reach of the law, nor does it convert a criminal suspect into a political detainee
— Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, in its September response to the UN Special Rapporteur, as quoted in the Human Rights Watch report of 1 November

The Khama row

The report arrived in the middle of an argument Zambia was already having with a neighbour's former president. The Zambian Observer reported on Friday 30 October that Ian Khama had described Hakainde Hichilema as Africa's newest dictator, and on Sunday that he had gone further in an interview with Swaziland News, accusing the government of manipulating elections, persecuting opponents and kidnapping and torturing activists. By Sunday evening State House had answered. The Observer reported that Clayson Hamasaka, the State House communications specialist, said it was hard to understand how Khama could call the President a dictator after visiting State House to hold talks with him, questioned Khama's grasp of the two countries' ties, and alleged that Khama had been among the sponsors of a militia group in Zambia, a claim the Observer noted it could not verify. Earlier, the former vice-president Enock Kavindele had urged Khama to respect Zambia's sovereignty and to back serious allegations with evidence, citing the abolition of the death penalty and the Access to Information Act, and the UPND's media director Mark Simuuwe had questioned the basis of the description. On the other side, the Green Party's Peter Sinkamba said on Sunday that the fairest course would be fresh general elections because, in his words, there is too much explosive tension.

We have lots of intermarriage between Zambia and Botswana.
— Clayson Hamasaka, State House communications specialist, responding to Ian Khama, as reported by the Zambian Observer on Sunday 1 November

Thursday in the High Court

The next fixed point is Thursday 5 November at 09:00, when a three-judge panel of the High Court in Lusaka, Judges Derrick Mulenga, Davies Chibwili and Ireen Wishimanga, resumes the constitutional bail application of Mundubile, Zulu and 16 others brought from Mukobeko. Zambia Monitor's account of the last sitting records the court's warning that there would be no further adjournment: the Attorney-General, Mulilo Kabesha, had asked for time to study a 32-paragraph affidavit in reply and 13 paragraphs of skeleton arguments, and the defence lawyer Milner Katolo said the applicants' case rested in part on paragraph 59 of the prosecution manual, which recognises constitutional bail where trial has been delayed. Katolo also raised the health of one applicant, Harry Findlay, who he said had missed appointments with his cardiologist in South Africa.

Sources: Human Rights Watch, “Zambia: Widespread Repression in Post-Election Crackdown” (1 Nov 2026); Zambian Observer, “State House Hits Back at Former Botswana President Ian Khama” (1 Nov 2026); Zambian Observer, “Former Botswana President Ian Khama Escalates Attacks on Hichilema, Alleges Political Persecution and Torture” (1 Nov 2026); Zambian Observer, “Fuel Prices Rise Again, Opposition Divided Over Mandevu as Khama Attacks Hichilema” (1 Nov 2026); Zambian Observer, “Former Botswana President Khama describes Hichilema as Africa's newest dictator” (30 Oct 2026); Zambian Observer, “Zambia should hold fresh elections says Peter Sinkamba” (1 Nov 2026); Zambia Monitor, “Court rules no further adjournments in Mundubile, Zulu bail hearing” (29 Oct 2026).