Zambia’s opposition leader, Hakainde Hichilema, has managed to send a message on Facebook to his supporters from the maximum security prison where he was moved earlier today.
Mr Hichilema is facing treason charges in the country’s High Court.
It’s not clear how he got the message out.
He said:
We do not know when we are going to be released or if at all we will be released, but that is not bothering us, all we know is that what we are fighting for is worth for us to die if that is what it means.
And we are not worried about death either, because there are a million others who will carry on with the fight for a proper democracy to work in Zambia.”
Mr Hichilema was detained in April after a convoy he was travelling allegedly got in the way of a presidential motorcade.
He is being accused of trying to usurp the powers of the presidency.
Rights groups and diplomats have expressed concern about the opposition leader’s incarceration.
The church is also speaking out. In a strongly worded statement from the Conference of Catholic Bishops, it warned that Zambia was slipping towards a “dictatorship”.
Mr Hichilema was arrested in April
