Mozambique: MISA condemns threats against Nampula journalists – AIM

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Mozambique: MISA condemns threats against Nampula journalists – AIM

10:11 CAT | 14 Nov 2019

Image: Wikimedia Commons

The Mozambican branch of the regional press freedom body MISA (Media Institute of Southern Africa) has condemned death threats and other acts of intimidation allegedly practiced against journalists of the Nampula-based electronic paper “Ikweli”.

According to a statement issued by MISA-Mozambique, the threats followed a letter published by the paper in which staff of the Nampula branch of the Administrative Tribunal denounced alleged mismanagement of the Tribunal.

But other senior staff from the Tribunal then went to “Ikweli” and demanded to know which journalists had been involved in publication of the letter.

“Ikweli” had been following the situation in the tribunal for months, and believed the accusations in the letter were essentially true. The main target of the accusations was the Presiding Judge of the Nampula Tribunal, Alexandre Manhica, and they concerned such matters as abuse of power, sexual harassment and theft of state property.

In the letter, the Tribunal staff (writing under condition of anonymity) claimed that Manhica told them “Nobody touches me. I’ve been sent to stay here for ten years”.

“Ikweli” said that, when one of is journalists approached Manhica for his reaction to the letter, he accused the reporter of being “an incompetent journalist with no professional ethics”.

According to the MISA release, citing the editorial director of “Ikweli”, Anuncio da Silva, the senior Tribunal staff who visited the paper demanded that the paper issue a denial of the letter. They allegedly threatened the journalists, saying they would “pay dearly”.

Later one of the journalists involved in the “Ikweli” investigations, Celestino Manuel, received five anonymous phone calls, all threatening him with death.

“Ikweli” said that, in line with the Mozambican press law, it offered the Tribunal staff the right of reply. They simply distanced themselves from the letter, MISA said, but did not refer to its content.

MISA said it regarded the harassment and threats as “a serious attack on press freedom” and demanded “an immediate end of this interference and intimidation, which is not typical of a democratic state ruled by law, as is the case of Mozambique”.

The latest twist in this saga is that the Nampula Provincial Office for the Fight against Corruption (GPCC) has opened an investigation of the Nampula Administrative Tribunal.

Cited in Monday’s issue of “Ikweli”, Freddy Jamal, the spokesperson for the GPCC, confirmed that the office has received anonymous denunciations of crimes supposedly committed by Tribunal officials, including Judge Manhica.

Source: AIM