Mozambique Bar Association demands accountability of police officers who filmed couple

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Mozambique Bar Association demands accountability of police officers who filmed couple

3:34 CAT | 30 Oct 2020

File photo: Lusa

The Mozambican Bar Association (OAM) yesterday demanded that the police officers who filmed a man and a woman inside a vehicle in Maputo be held accountable, pointing out that their actions are in violation of the law.

Earlier this week, video images circulated on social networks of a man with a semi-naked woman in a car parked on the waterfront near Maputo. The images were recorded at night on an unknown date using the cell phone of one of the police agents, who later posted them on the Internet.

In the video, one of the policemen is heard saying several times that the woman is naked, while another encourages his colleague to film her and the woman asks him not to, referring to the policeman doing the filming as “chief”.

In a statement which Lusa has seen, the Human Rights Commission of the Mozambican Bar Association (CDHOAM) condemns the behaviour of the police as violating fundamental rights, demanding their criminal and civil liability.

“CDHOAM identified and contacted one of the victims, culminating in the filing of a criminal complaint against the agents involved for committing, among others, the crimes of slander, qualified theft, extortion and moral violence, all foreseen and punishable in the terms of the current Penal Code,” the note reads.

The Bar Association considers that the filming and subsequent dissemination of the video violates human dignity, offends moral integrity and the right to a full defence, and also the presumption of innocence enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of Mozambique.

The CDHOAM reports that it has taken steps with the Maputo City Police Command, “which culminated in the identification of five of the six agents involved in this serious violation of human rights, and had received information on the initiation of disciplinary proceedings against them”.

Lawyers consider the serious violation of human rights by PRM agents structural and systematic, contrary to the function legally assigned to the institution.

“In the Republic of Mozambique, the law protects citizens against any unlawful offense or threat of harm to their physical or moral personality, as well as imposing on all citizens the duty to guard their reservation regarding the privacy of another’s private life,” the CDHOAM points out.

The CDHOAM emphasises that the fact of a citizen being surprised by the PRM ‘in flagrante delicto’ [while committing an alleged criminal offense] “does not legitimise the use of illegal, unworthy, disproportionate, inappropriate, vexing, degrading or humiliating means that violate citizens’ fundamental rights, freedoms and guarantees”.

On the other hand, continues the press release, the law prohibits the taking of evidence by offending the physical or moral integrity or abusive intrusion into private life.

“Strangely, despite the filming and the dissemination of the video, no criminal proceedings were opened against the pair of young people who, would have, supposedly, been surprised in the practice of the alleged crime of public outrage of modesty.

Source: Lusa