Maputo, 23 Mar (AIM) – The Mozambican chapter of the regional press freedom body MISA (Media Institute of Southern Africa) has expressed its concern at Tuesday’s “veiled threat to the independence of the media and to the constitutional right to demonstrate” made by the Deputy General Commander of the police, Fernando Tsucana.
At a Tuesday press conference, Tsucana, MISA noted, “justified the violent repression of unarmed citizens who wished to express their admiration for the late singer Edson da Luz (Azagaia) with the existence of signs of ‘a coup d’etat’, supposedly promoted by the press and by civil society organisations”.
Tsucana cited by name the paper “Evidencias” and the television channels “Tua TV” and “TV Sucesso”, claiming they were inciting what he called a “social uprising”.
He said the police repressed the demonstrators because “the march was organized by political parties and members of civil society organisations, and not by musicians”. Tsucana apparently believed that tributes to dead musicians “could only be organized by actors of the cultural industry”.
Given the seriousness of the police response to the march and of Tsucana’s threats, MISA has written to Interior Minister Arsenia Massinga, asking for an explanation of the causes of the violent action taken by the police.
It asked what the legal basis was for the police ban on the marches, and why the police had contradicted the authorisation for the demonstration granted by the Maputo Municipal Council.
MISA also asked for an official position from the Interior Ministry about “the responsibility of its agents who, from the acts reported, subverted the constitutional order of freedom of assembly and demonstration and the freedoms of expression and of the press”.
The explanations given by Tsucana were just “assumptions devoid of proof”, said MISA. His words were an attempt “to publicly demoralise activists and the media”, and he had missed “an opportunity to redeem himself in the eyes of the people he had sworn to defend”.
If there were indeed threats to the country’s security, “the least that could be expected from the authorities was coordinated action with the leaders of the march in order, on the one hand, to guarantee public order and tranquility, and, on the other, to protect rights that are universally and constitutionally recognized”.
MISA also asked the Ombudsman, Isaque Chande, to assign responsibility to the institutions and individuals behind the repression which has stained Mozambique’s reputation.
(AIM)
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