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The Mozambican police on Tuesday forcibly broke up a demonstration in central Maputo of women activists protesting against gender-based violence.
Under Mozambican law peaceful demonstrations do not require authorisation, but the organisers should notify the authorities four days in advance.
The protesters gathered about 100 metres from the Maputo Palace of Justice, a site chosen because, in the women’s view, the Mozambican institutions of justice are not acting promptly enough to deal with violence against women.
Although the gathering was entirely peaceful and broke no laws, the police demanded that the women disperse, and when they refused to do so, the police used force and 19 of the protestors were arrested.
One of the women, Quiteria Guirengane, told reporters she was surprised by the police behaviour. “We informed them of our demonstration on 29 November”, she said. “That’s nine days in advance, when the law only requires four days. And this morning the Municipal Police contacted us to clarify some details about the demonstration”.
When the police tried to disperse the women, according to the account in the independent daily “O Pais”, they shouted “We’re Mozambicans, we’re not foreigners in this country, and we need to be respected. We haven’t killed anybody, we haven’t harmed anybody”.
The 19 detainees were held for several hours at a police station – and then released without charge, apparently because the police realised that their actions were being filmed.
The only excuse the police gave for their behaviour was that the demonstration had not been authorised – but under the Mozambican constitution and the law on freedom of assembly, peaceful demonstration need no authorisation.
The Mozambican Network of Human Rights Defenders (RMDDH) pointed out that the women’s demonstration was part of the United Nations international campaign entitled “16 days of activism for the end of gender-based violence”.
An RMDDH press release said “this shameful action by the police is a danger to the democratic rule of law”.
It strongly condemned the police attitude and demanded that the police officers involved in repressing the demonstration should be held responsible for their actions”.
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