Timothy Mtambo
Before he entered politics in April 2020, Timothy Mtambo was the chairperson of the Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC), a Malawi organisation that works to defend human rights. He was also the executive director of the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) as well as the vice chairperson of Southern African Human Rights Defenders Network. He organised peaceful demonstrations across Malawi advocating for the preservation of civil and political rights in Malawi and called for the resignation of Malawi Electoral Commission Chairperson Jane Ansah over alleged mismanagement of national elections held on 21 May 2019.
Once considered a country where civil society could express itself freely, Malawi descended into a spiral of authoritarianism which culminated in the targeting of human rights defenders through arrests, prosecution, death threats and the violent dispersal of protests.
