Swaziland’s Communist Party yesterday condemned the imprisonment of Nation magazine editor Bheki Makhubu and writer and human-rights lawyer Thulani Maseko as unjust and illegal. 

It said both men were defenders of freedom of speech and an independent judiciary in Swaziland and had already been detained for two years awaiting sentencing.

The party said the detentions were clearly a case of King Mswati III intervening “in his usual manner to use the legal system as his personal sjambok (whip). 

“One has only to read the judgment, delivered on July 25 … to get a measure of how devoid of justice, objectivity and decency the Swazi legal system is.”

The communists emphasised that Nation had been a courageous publication exposing the corruption of the country’s tinkhundla (constituency) system.

They warned the attack on press freedom was a clear reminder to the international community that any talk of democratic reform on the horizon was meaningless.