Mozambique: Government to move ahead with press and broadcasting laws

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Government to move ahead with press and broadcasting laws

2:26 CAT | 17 Apr 2025

File photo: Lusa

The Mozambican government yesterday announced its intention to submit its proposed media and broadcasting laws for debate in the Assembly of the Republic, describing them as a commitment to improving the legal framework.

“The government will submit, after updating and harmonizing with the different stakeholders, the proposed media and broadcasting laws that had already been submitted to the Assembly of the Republic and that were not considered in the ninth legislature,” Prime Minister Benvinda Levi said during the annual meeting of Sociedade do Notícias, owner of Jornal Notícias, the oldest daily newspaper in the country.

Prime Minister Levi acknowledged the importance of the media in strengthening democratic debate and in the framework of guaranteeing fundamental freedoms, and therefore promised the executive’s commitment to the process of improving the legal framework within which it operates.

On the same occasion, Levi called on social media associations to introduce a professional journalist card as a way of enhancing the profession, and urged them to improve the licensing mechanisms of bodies whose objective is to protect “the noblest values of professional activity”.

In 2021, at least five Mozambican civil society organizations asked parliament to remove several aspects of the proposed broadcasting and media laws, considering them unconstitutional and a threat to the right to information and freedom of the press.

The Mozambican parliament has been trying to debate the proposed laws for years. They are described as aiming to adapt the legal framework for the media in Mozambique to the changes that the country has undergone since the approval of the Press Law, in force since 1991.

Source: Lusa