By Imam Wali:
On the afternoon of April 17, 2026, Osman Naya was just a citizen riding a motorcycle toward Dedza Township. By sunset, he was a bleeding suspect, trapped by a legal system he could not read.
Naya, a resident of Kanyenda Village, Senior Chief Kasumbu, was traveling with his brother-in-law when his day shattered. Near the entry to Dedza town along Kasumbu Road, six police officers emerged abruptly. One officer waved at him to stop.
“I did not see them coming. They just appeared out of nowhere. I struggled to slam on the brakes because I was only a few metres away from them.
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Before I could stop, one officer struck me in the face. I fell on the roadside.
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“The blood started pouring everywhere. When they realised how badly they had wounded me, their attitude shifted. They told me they were taking me to the station to write a statement so I could get a police referral letter for medical treatment at Dedza District Hospital,” Naya said.
For an injured, desperate citizen, the promise of medical help brought immediate relief.
In reality, it was a trap. At Dedza Police Station, law enforcers handed the 26-yearold a piece of paper.
Bleeding and unable to read, he trusted the uniform. He believed he was holding his ticket to justice.
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Instead, he was given a police bail bond dated 17/04/2020 naming him as a suspected criminal.
It was written “Conduct” offence.
“They gave me the written paper and asked me to take it to the hospital for medical assistance. They said I should go home from there. They never mentioned that I should go back to the police station.
“They took advantage of my illiteracy. It took good Samaritans later to look at the paper and translate it for me.
I was shocked. They turned me into the lawbreaker to shield themselves [from their wrongdoing]. If the law were for everyone, why are the ones who beat me up walking scotfree?” Naya questions.
The Republican Constitution, in Section 42(1) (a), says anyone detained has the right to be informed of the reason “in a language which he or she understands”. Section 42(2)(c) bans forcing a person to sign a confession.
Police Standing Orders also require statements to be read back or interpreted for non-reading suspects.
By giving him the bail bond as a medical letter and to shut him, the officers violated these safeguards.
Naya’s nightmare is not an isolated incident of police brutality. It is a calculated investigative evasion tactic used by rogue elements within the Malawi Police Service.
Two serving police officers, speaking strictly on condition of anonymity, confirmed that manipulating non-reading victims is an unwritten rule of survival for brutal officers.
“When an officer crosses the line and severely injures a civilian, the immediate instinct is self-protection. If we see that a victim does not know the law or cannot read, we quickly open a counter-case against them,” one insider revealed.
Our investigations established that officers sometimes use these unauthorised posts to demand money from motorists.
This strategy relies on a tragic demographic reality. According to statistics from the Malawi Integrated Household Survey IHS5 of 2020, Malawi’s national adult illiteracy rate sits at 24.5 percent.
In rural communities, 35.2 percent of women and 19.4 percent of men cannot read, leaving more than a third of the rural population blind to what is written on documents.
Joyce Chisale,38, knows this vulnerability all too well. Interviewed for this investigation, she recounted an identical predicament but chose to bury her trauma.
“I was terrified. When you cannot read what they write about you, and they tell you that signing for it will make the trouble go away, you just sign not knowing that you are crucifying yourself and that there is no turning back. In my case, I just had to let it go,” she said.
What the rogue officers are doing—turning an education gap into a legal trap—is violating Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 4, target 4.6, on literacy for all adults, and SDG 16 Targets 16.3 & 16.5 on equal access to justice and reducing corruption.
But Naya refuses to let his lack of literacy dictate his fate. He has formally lodged complaints with the Independent Complaints Commission (ICC), the statutory body mandated to investigate police misconduct, as well as the Malawi Legal Aid Bureau and the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR).
“I want to want to be served with justice to ensure that this brutality will never happen to anyone again,” he said.
Since its inception in 2021, ICC has received 604 complaints against police officers, completed investigating 268 cases, with 324 cases still under investigation, while 63 complaints, including Naya’s, are pending commencement.
Centre for Human Rights Education, Advice and Assistance Executive Director Victor Mhango said such practices pose a serious threat to the right to access justice and undermine public confidence in law enforcement.
“To address these challenges, several measures are necessary: Expand legal aid and paralegal services so that vulnerable persons who cannot read have access to legal advice at the earliest stage of police interaction. Strengthen the role of the Independent Complaints Commission and other oversight bodies in investigating allegations of police misconduct,” he said.
However, higher authorities have taken notice. After reports of the assault emerged via Times 360 Malawi, the Office of the Inspector General of Police deployed Commissioner Moja Phiri to investigate the incident.
In a text (WhatsApp) conversation on the morning of June 14, 2026, Commissioner Phiri confirmed that the initial field inquiry had concluded, though the final administrative outcomes remain pending.
“We completed our investigations after merely three days from our visit to Dedza. Sitigonekera ntchito [We do not sleep on the job]. But it is a process which involves many steps and different handlers at different levels.
“Our office does not complete the entire process. Our office outlines findings from the instituted investigations and later comes up with recommendations basing on the findings. Others pick it up from there depending on what they can do with the recommendations. It is like a chain,” Phiri said.
DVV International Communications and Programme Officer for Southern Africa, Dyson Mthawanji, said adult learning and education is key for both community and national development.
“Literate people easily understand development concepts. They also effectively and efficiently contribute to such development initiatives.
As we move towards the realisation of the Malawi 2063 vision, everyone should be an active citizen in as far as their participation in development is concerned. This is possible if citizens are literate,” he said.
For Naya, the scars on his face are healing, but the institutional betrayal remains an open wound. His quest for justice is no longer just about a roadside assault; it is about exposing a system that turns paper into a weapon against those who cannot read it.
