Mozambique: OAM denounces police repression and torture

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Mozambique: OAM denounces police repression and torture

9:25 CAT | 07 Feb 2025

File photo: O País

The Human Rights Commission of the Mozambican Bar Association (CDH-OAM) has denounced police repression against citizens involved in protests contesting Mozambique’s election results, accusing the police of murder, torture, and enforced disappearances.

In a Wednesday press release, the CDH-OAM accused the Mozambican Police Force (PRM), the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR – the Mozambican equivalent of the riot police), and the National Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC) of abusing their power, including the use of live ammunition against unarmed citizens.

“The PRM has been a poor example of disproportionate, unnecessary, unjustified, and excessive violence, as evidenced by the high number of illegal detentions, preventable deaths, injured citizens, and other cases of persecution and disappearances,” reads the statement signed by Ferosa Zacarias, Director of the CDH-OAM.

The document details a recent case of police torture involving a young man who was detained and accused of managing a Facebook account allegedly inciting violence in the context of the protests against the election results.

The account is in the name of Unay Cambuma. This is a pseudonym that was once used by supporters of the former rebel movement Renamo. In recent weeks the name has reappeared as a Facebook page, which SERNIC accuses of “public instigation to crime”, “public apology for crime”, “threats of violence”, “subverting the rule of law”, and “incitement to collective disobedience”.

Two men were accused of running the Unay Cambuma page. The CDH-OAM found that one of them, Wilson Matias, “was brutally beaten in ‘hidden parts of the body,’ mainly in the bladder area, causing him severe difficulties in meeting his basic physiological needs.”
The young man was presented to journalists on 31 January in a visibly weakened physical state as a result of the assaults he had endured.

The Bar Association stated that there is insufficient evidence against the two young men accused of managing the Unay Cambuma account and submitted a request for their release under a term of identity and residence, which was denied by the investigating magistrate.
In total, the Bar Association reported that 4,236 people were illegally detained across the country in the context of the post-election protests, of whom 96 per cent were released after receiving legal assistance from on-call OAM lawyers.

According to the Bar Association, citing data from a harmonisation group composed of national and international human rights organisations, 737 people were shot, 323 of whom died.

“The CDH-OAM expresses deep concern over the current scenario of police violence, which, despite the recent change in the leadership of the Mozambican Police Force and the Ministry of the Interior, remains non-compliant with operational standards, particularly those focusing on human rights protection,” the statement stressed.

Source: AIM