Staff Reporter
SWAPO veteran member and former minister, Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana, has encouraged Namibians to be mindful of the constitutional provisions regarding freedom of speech before making statements.
Iivula-Ithana made these remarks in the wake of her demand for fellow SWAPO member Paulus Hakalume to apologize to her or face a N$300,000 lawsuit. Hakalume had allegedly claimed that a woman in a viral photo, who appears to be receiving a membership card from the opposition party Independent Patriots of Change (IPC), was former SWAPO Secretary General Iivula-Ithana. Additionally, Hakalume allegedly called Iivula-Ithana “a hibernator in SWAPO.”
Iivula-Ithana has given Hakalume until 20 June 2024 to publicly retract his statements and tender a public apology or face the lawsuit.
“We have given him a due date on which he should file the apology, but so far he says he has not received anything. So I am giving him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he will make up his mind in the meantime. If the due date comes up, I will invoke my other option. Maybe I can just say, our people should just watch out. They should read properly the constitutional provisions with respect to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is the right of everyone. Where my freedom of speech ends is where another one starts. If people just talk the way they feel like talking about other members of society, sometimes it forces us to face one another even if we are members of the same family,” Iivula-Ithana said.
In a letter, Kadhila Amoomo Legal Practitioners, who represent Iivula-Ithana in the matter, said that given her background and enforced by Article 8 of the Namibian Constitution, Iivula-Ithana’s reputation is important and impeccable. Despite this, Kadhila Amoomo Practitioners said that Hakalume maliciously authored statements and circulated them through various social media platforms concerning their client, stating that she is a hibernator in the SWAPO party and one of the funders of the IPC.
“You further distributed graphic and verbal information relating to our client’s political standing and reputation, knowing the same to be false. It is further our instructions that these defamatory statements were made by yourself, in your personal capacity and in your alter ego description of Ndjamba Yolupangi. It is against this background that we are hereby instructed to demand from you, as we hereby do, that you, on or before 20 June 2024, issue an apology through a voice message duly distributed to all WhatsApp groups, and that you produce a letter of apology to our client wherein you retract all allegations against our client. Kindly be informed that failure to do so will leave us with no option but to approach the High Court and sue you for defamation in the amount of N$300,000.00,” the letter reads.
