{"id":80320,"date":"2019-07-10T10:24:28","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T08:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=80320"},"modified":"2019-07-10T10:25:09","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T08:25:09","slug":"activists-arrested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2019\/07\/10\/activists-arrested\/","title":{"rendered":"Activists arrested"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Pilirani Kachinziri:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_80323\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-80323\" style=\"width: 199px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"\/\/www.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/macdonald-sembereka.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-80323\" src=\"\/\/www.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/macdonald-sembereka-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/macdonald-sembereka-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/macdonald-sembereka.jpg 242w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-80323\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">ACCUSED OF FUNDS EMBEZZLEMENT\u2014Sembereka<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Lilongwe Police Tuesday arrested human rights activists Gift Trapence and Macdonald Sembereka over allegations that they misappropriated funds.<\/p>\n<p>National Police spokesperson James Kadadzera said the police received a complaint from UNAids about the misappropriated funds.<\/p>\n<p>UNAids did not corroborate police\u2019s version of the issue.<\/p>\n<p>Kadadzera, however, did not disclose the amount of money involved but confirmed that the two are under the fraud and fiscal police section.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThey have just been arrested. UNAids complained about the misappropriated funds. We will give you all the details later,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Human rights activist Billy Mayaya has since described the arrest as a ploy to silence Trapence, who has been vocal on the anti- Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) demonstrations, asking for its Chairperson <a href=\"\/\/www.times.mw\/jane-ansah-angers-csos\/\">Jane Ansah<\/a>\u2019s resignation.<\/p>\n<p>Mayaya alleged that the two are being accused of misappropriating K7 million meant for Lesbian, Gay Biosexual and Transgender activities.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cWe know that this is a ploy to silence Trapence because of his involvement in leading the anti-Mec demonstrations. It is not true that they embezzled the funds,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>However, Minister of Information, Mark Botomani, has distanced the government from the issue.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cI have just read it from social media because I am outside the country. But we categorically refute those allegations. There is no way the government can do that,\u201d<\/em> he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Trapence, who is Human Rights Defenders Coalition Deputy Chairperson, has been organising demonstrations to force Ansah to resign for allegedly failing to properly manage the May 21 2019 Tripartite Elections.<\/p>\n<p>Sembereka was also on the forefront coordinating nationwide protests in Malawi on July 20 2011.<\/p>\n<p>He was the target of an arson attack on September 10 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Pilirani Kachinziri: Lilongwe Police Tuesday arrested human rights activists Gift Trapence and Macdonald Sembereka over allegations that they misappropriated funds. National Police spokesperson James Kadadzera said the police received a complaint from UNAids about the misappropriated funds. UNAids did not corroborate police\u2019s version of the issue. Kadadzera, however, did not disclose the amount of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":67341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80320"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80325,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80320\/revisions\/80325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}