UNHCR's Grandi and UN’s Piper call for renewed focus on Mozambique displacement
File photo / Ericino de Salema was a commentator at 'Pontos de Vista'
The journalist and political commentator Ericino de Salema, kidnapped and beaten in Maputo on March 27, is recovering well from his injuries, a source at the press freedom organisation MISA Moçambique has told Lusa.
“He is recovering positively and has sent us a messages of vitality and continuity,” Ernesto Nhanale, a journalist and member of MISA Moçambique said, speaking to Lusa at the Union of Journalists in Maputo on the sidelines of the European Union (EU) journalism prize for human rights work.
MISA Mozambique has spoken with Ericino de Salema, who is still being treated at a health facility in South Africa after suffering several fractures that made him unable to walk.
Salema said that “the way forward is to continue to fight for Mozambique’s well-being and to defend the work of journalists,” Nhanale reported. “He encourages us to remain at the forefront of defending press freedom.”
The EU representative in Mozambique, Sven Von Burgsdorff, told Lusa that the European delegation “is following the process”.
“I think it is being investigated by the judicial authorities. I do not know about the latest steps,” he said. “It is no coincidence that we believe it is important to develop investigative journalism with a focus on human rights,” he added, referring to the award today.
Sven Von Burgsdorff said Salema’s case was shocking, and “unfortunately not the first” of a journalist or commentator being attacked in Mozambique. It was positive, however, that, despite the threats, there are still “journalists with courage and ambition”.
Several Mozambican civil society organisations handed a petition in to the Assembly of the Republic in April, urging it to press court institutions to clarify cases of violence against critics of the government and the Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo, the party in power).
In 2015, French-born Mozambican constitutionalist Gilles Cistac was fatally shot in the Mozambican capital, and the following year political scientist José Macuane survived after being kidnapped and shot when he also was a commentator on ‘Points of View’.
None of the crimes have been solved by the authorities.
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