Mozambique: Arson attack on newspaper points to loss of press freedom – NGO

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Mozambique: Arson attack on newspaper points to loss of press freedom – NGO

4:01 CAT | 26 Aug 2020

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), a Mozambican NGO, on Tuesday said that the arson attack on the newsroom of the Canal de Moçambique shows the deterioration of press freedom and expression.

The editor of the weekly Canal de Moçambique, André Mulungo, told Lusa on Monday that strangers set fire to the newspaper’s newsroom on Sunday night, destroying the premises in central Maputo.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the CDD said that the event reflects the deterioration of the conditions for the exercise of press freedom and expression in Mozambique.

“The successive attacks against the Mozambique Channel are part of a wider context of deteriorating conditions for the exercise of freedom of the press and expression, as well as the right to information,” the statement said.

As proof that the fire is not an isolated episode, the CDD recalled that the executive director of the Canal de Moçambique, Matias Guente, was recently heard by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) for articles that the weekly wrote about contracts between oil multinationals and the Mozambican government on the protection of natural gas projects in the province of Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, in the face of armed attacks in the region.

At the end of last year, Matias Guente was the target of an alleged kidnapping attempt in Maputo and the incident has not yet been clarified by the authorities, the CDD pointed out.

The civil society organisation recalled that the fire at the Mozambique Channel newsroom occurred in a context where journalist Ibrahimo Abu Mbaruco remains missing, four months after he was last seen in the district of Palma, Cabo Delgado province.

In 2019, the CDD added, another journalist, Amade Abubacar, was deprived of his liberty for three months at a military barracks in Mueda, Cabo Delgado.

In April, the journalist Hizidine Achá was taken by force to a police station by members of the Rapid Intervention Unit in the city of Pemba, capital of Cabo Delgado province.

Speaking to Lusa, the editor of the Mozambique Channel said that drums with fuel were found inside the newsroom, one of which still had some fuel.

The authors of the fire reportedly introduced the fuel drums inside the newspaper’s premises after breaking into the front door of the house, Mulungo said.

“The signs we found inside the newsroom leave no doubt that this is a criminal act and not an accident,” he added.

Several national and international entities have already condemned the fire to the Mozambique Channel newsroom.

The Mozambican president, Filipe Nyusi, condemned the event and demanded that the perpetrators be brought to justice.