SP youths detained at KK international airport on arrival from Venezuela
By Staff Reporter
EIGHT opposition Socialist Party youths where on Sunday detained for more than three hours at Kenneth Kaunda International upon arrival from Venezuela on drug-related suspicions.
Speaking to newsdayzambia.com , one of the youths, Ezekiel Ngisi said the team arrived aboard South African Airways around 15:00 hrs after taking part in the International People’s Assembly in solidarity with the Nicolas Maduro-led government in Caracas, Venezuela, but were detained for over three hours by state security agents.
Ngisi, a member of the SP youth league said upon arrival the group was clad in their ordinary clothing, cleared with immigration and proceeded to collect their bags from the carousel in the arrivals hall.
“As we were leaving the place, a plain-clothed officer who identified herself as Lucy Phiri from the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) approached me and demanded for my passports. She said she was conducting a random security check but surprisingly only the eight from the Socialist Youth League of Zambia were singled out among the many other travellers,” explained Ngisi.
He said following an X-ray screening, the young socialists were told that their bags might have contained some illegal substances according to the x-ray results and were therefore subjected to further searching.
“The team comprising four DEC and three police officers, two of whom were armed, physically searched each of the group’s bags by removing each and every item one by one. Following the search which yielded nothing, the story changed and the state security officers told us that they had received information from Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris that we had ‘issues,” he said
Ngisi added that immediately after that explanation and after scanning the passports as well as taking down all the details, the youths were released.
And Ngisi has charged that the entire searching was politically motivated and it was pure harassment and intimidations as the officers wanted to intimidate them but they remained calm because they knew that they had done nothing wrong.
“After they failed to reveal their identities it created more suspicions and honestly the move was politically motivated, this was pure conspiracy to intimidate us from doing the work that we do,” he charged.
Meanwhile, Ngisi has called on the youths across the country to make sure that they protect the democracy of the country.
“It is high time that youths in Zambia should be taken seriously by our leaders and the society at large, the youths are the ones that are going to protect any form of democracy, any form of patriotism and sovereignty of this country and we must not fear,” he said. “Where we see things are not right, we must always come out and make it clear to those people that we do not succumb to any form of unusual behaviour especially with regards to intimidations intended to shut us out. We must stand fame and protect our country”.
He said Zambians should always look forward to a more patriotic, equitable and peaceful Zambia
Images of members of the Socialist Youth League of Zambia marching along with Socialist Party (Zambia) 2021 presidential candidate, Dr Fred M’membe, in the streets of Caracas have gone viral in the last few days on social media platforms in Zambia.
