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As the news editor of Zambia’s largest circulation newspaper and a mother to two young children,
Pictures arrived in June in the newsroom of Kabwela’s
newspaper, The Post, and they were disturbing: a
mother giving birth outside the University Teaching Hospital in the capital,
Her “crime,” however, was a matter of interpretation. To government prosecutors,
Kabwela had corrupted public morals and for that she was summoned to the police,
fingerprinted, briefly put in a cell, and prosecuted. To press freedom
advocates, the case was another episode of government harassment during an
already difficult
year for the Zambian independent press. When a legal columnist at The
Kabwela, who oversees more than 40 journalists at a newspaper
with an average daily circulation of 30,000, never took a day off during
the four-month trial, but conceded that the case disrupted her work. “Instead
of concentrating on work, I was at court in the morning,” she told me shortly
after her acquittal. With court hearings starting at 9 a.m., Kabwela was in
fact forced to half The
Beyond the impact on her professional life, the trial had
personal costs as well. “I’ve been demonized as if I was insensitive to issues
of culture and privacy,” she said, but added that she welcomed the ruling as a vindication.
She said the “overwhelming support” she received kept her going throughout what
she called a difficult period. The outpouring of support included more than 500
people who joined groups
on Facebook, including “Free
Kabwela started as a reporter with The
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