Bar Association challenges Mocímboa da Praia curfew

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Bar Association challenges Mocímboa da Praia curfew

8:10 CAT | 01 Feb 2019

File photo: DW

The chairperson of the Mozambican Bar Association (OAM), Flavio Menete, on Friday denounced as illegal the curfew declared by the mayor of the northern town of Mocimba da Praia.

Menete was speaking at a Maputo ceremony to launch the 2019 judicial year. He made it clear that the terrorist attacks in Cabo Delgado province should not be used as a pretext to redistrict citizens’ freedoms.

The mayor, Fernando Neves, in a dispatch dated 25 January banned the circulation of vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians on the streets of Mocimba da Praia between 21.00 and 04.00, on the grounds that islamist insurgents may be travelling through the town at night. He also banned economic activities and entertainment (such as cinemas and discotheques) between those times.

Menete said such measures were not within the powers of the municipal council. “A mayor” he said, “cannot limit the rights and freedoms of the citizens”.

Menete also found it “strange that the general commander of police defends this illegality. (The police commander, Bernardino Rafael, interviewed on Wednesday had claimed that such measures can be taken without specific legislation).

The declaration of a curfew falls under a state of siege, and the constitution states that only the President of the Republic can declare such a state.

Menete also condemned the illegal detention of journalist Amade Abubacar on 5 January, who was held in a military barracks in the Cabo Delgado town of Mueda for 13 days. Menete noted that after Abubacar had been transferred to police custody a judge had validated and maintained his detention, despite the torture he had suffered. He regarded this as a “judicial aberration”.

“We might come to the end of this and find that the journalist did not commit any offence, but he had been deprived of his right to inform society of what is going on in Cabo Delgado”. he declared

Menete was angered at the double standards shown by the Public Prosecutor’s Office which had failed to release a journalist illegally held in a military facility, but has been making “Titanic efforts to avoid the extradition (from South Africa to the United States) of former finance minister Manuel Chang. This leads us to conclude that it is not behaving in an impartial manner.”

The OAM, he said, strongly condemns the terrorist attacks in Cabo Delgado and “urges the authorities to redouble their efforts to identify the cause and the authors, to solve the problem, and at the same time inform civil society of what is really happening.”

It was impossible to agree with the official declaration “that the situation is under control, when in reality human lives are still being cut down everyday” said Menete.