{"id":29315,"date":"2016-10-11T02:30:43","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T02:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/malawi-dismisses-rumours-about-president\/"},"modified":"2016-10-11T02:30:40","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T02:30:40","slug":"malawi-dismisses-rumours-about-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/malawi-dismisses-rumours-about-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Malawi dismisses rumours about President Mutharika&#8217;s health"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Malawi&#8217;s government has dismissed rumours about President Peter Mutharika&#8217;s health following his extended stay in the United States after attending the UN General Assembly in New York.}<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The president is enjoying very robust health and is continuing to carry on his duties&#8221; a statement said.<\/p>\n<p>It warned that people speculating on his health will be &#8220;brought to book&#8221;.<br \/>\nMr Mutharika came into office in May 2014.<\/p>\n<p>He spoke at the UN on 25 September and has been out of Malawi since then.<\/p>\n<p>The government statement, posted on Facebook, and signed by the government spokesperson, said there was no need for people to panic.<\/p>\n<p>It added that the rumours &#8220;were baseless, malicious and sickening&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>It also reminded &#8220;all Malawians that whilst the laws of this country provide for freedom of expression, those rights ought to be exercised responsibly and within the law.<br \/>\n&#8220;Spreading false rumours about the health of the president is a criminal offence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>{{Video evidence}}<\/p>\n<p>Local activist Gerald Kampanikiza told the privately-owned Nyasa Times newspaper that the government should provide video evidence to disprove the rumours.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Take a video feed of Mr Mutharika and post [that] rather than his last public appearance photo as you are doing,&#8221; Mr Kampanikiza is quoted by the newspaper as saying.<\/p>\n<p>Malawians online have been using the hashtag #BringBackMutharika to call for the return of their president.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-15632 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_91745681_gettyimages-490532948.jpg\" alt=\"President Peter Mutharika travelled to the United States to speak at the UN General Assembly\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Malawi&#8217;s government has dismissed rumours about President Peter Mutharika&#8217;s health following his extended stay in the United States after attending the UN General Assembly in New York.} &#8220;The president is enjoying very robust health and is continuing to carry on his duties&#8221; a statement said. It warned that people speculating on his health will be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29315"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29315"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}