On 21 November 2018, Zambian police questioned opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema over allegations that his remarks helped stir hostility against Chinese nationals in Kitwe, the country’s second city.
Copperbelt police chief Charity Katanga said Hichilema was interviewed after accusing President Edgar Lungu’s administration of selling a state-run timber company to a Chinese company, a claim that followed protests in the area.
“He has been cautioned for sedition,” Ms Katanga told AFP.
The case landed in a wider climate of suspicion around Chinese involvement in Zambia. Anti-China feeling had been rising amid allegations that lucrative contracts were being handed to Chinese interests, while the Lungu administration was also being accused of loading the country with loans from China that it could not comfortably repay. The government has rejected those claims.
Hichilema arrived at the police station in a convoy of supporters and said he had “remained silent” during questioning “as per our constitutional right”.
The opposition leader had already spent 100 days in prison after his arrest in April last year, when he was accused of treason after a convoy he was travelling in allegedly blocked the presidential motorcade. Those charges against him and five aides were later dropped after a deal negotiated by the Commonwealth.
He has also continued to challenge the 2016 presidential results, in which he lost to President Lungu.
