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PRO-DEMOCRACY campaigners have welcomed the release of two prominent political prisoners by Swaziland’s royalist regime this week.
Human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko and Nation newspaper editor Bheki Makhubu were released on Tuesday after almost a year in prison.
The two had been locked up since July 2014 as part of a crackdown on freedom of expression and the press by the government of King Mswati III.
They were convicted of contempt of court for publishing articles criticising threats to judicial independence.
The Communist Party of Swaziland (CPS) hailed their release as “an important outcome of intense campaigning by organisations worldwide, governments and trade unions.”
While the government claimed that courts were there to “prosecute, not persecute,” the CPS pointed to the sacking of senior judges Michael Ramodibedi, whom the prisoners criticised, and Mpendulo Simelane, who sentenced them.
