Mozambique: Human rights activists demand protection from ‘threats’

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Mozambique: Human rights activists demand protection from ‘threats’

2:36 CAT | 11 Apr 2022

File photo: Lusa

Mozambican human rights activists have called for the adoption of a “specific legal instrument of protection”, warning of “violations of various kinds” against activists in the country.

“It is therefore important to adopt its own legal instrument to protect the rights of human rights defenders” in Mozambique, said the Mozambican Network of Human Rights Defenders (RMDDH), in a report on 2021.

Report on the launch of the Study on the Situation and Needs of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists in Mozambique

Read more:https://t.co/NbkWW9WQ0a @AfricaDefenders @SAHRDNetwork @adriano_nuvunga @SAWHRDN @FrontLineHRD pic.twitter.com/D7dnTab2Ky

— RMDDH (@RMDDH_Moz) April 8, 2022

The network said that the situation of human rights and the democratic rule of law is “increasingly threatened” in the country, judging by the limitations and violations of the rights and fundamental freedoms of activists, especially the right to demonstrate, freedom of expression, access to justice, physical integrity and the right to information.

According to the RMDDH, in 2021, activists “worked in an extremely hostile political environment”, marked by “violations of various kinds”, in the face of an “apathetic attitude of the institutions of justice, especially the public prosecutor”.

In the report, the network reports some episodes of violation of their rights, calling for “exploring other legal and effective means to strengthen [their] protection”.

The association also said that human rights defenders in Mozambique are victims of threats, smear campaigns, arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment, being at “risk of violent attacks and assassinations by criminal gangs, including at the behest of state bodies or entities.”

“Journalists have constituted the class of human rights defenders who have suffered the most unlawful limitations of their rights,” the document adds.

Despite the difficulties, the activists celebrate the distinctions they have had in 2021, considering that “they reveal that they do not bow down to intimidation from the powers that be”.

Source: Lusa