Alc Pan-african Radio

Academic freedom protects the right to ask sensitive and even dangerous questions that matter to society. Academic freedom is not just for scholars and students to ask questions but the freedom for everyone to think and ask questions that really matter to them and society today. Questions about the environment, questions about security, questions about poverty and development, questions about justice, questions about truth. In 2011 academic freedom in Malawi came under threat when Dr Blessings Chinsinga, a lecturer at the University of Malawi was summoned by the Inspector General of the Police. Dr Chinsinga was questioned, because, during a lecture he had drawn parallels between the foreign currency and fuel shortage in Malawi at the time, and the causes of the 2011 Arab Spring that was underway in Egypt and Tunisia. But the summon and questioning was contrary to the constitution of Malawi. The constitution of Malawi spells out that academic freedom cannot be constrained even in an officially declared stat