Maputo, 8 Nov (AIM) – The Mozambican chapter of the regional press freedom body MISA (Media Institute of Southern Africa) has expressed its serious concern at the expulsion from Mozambique of two Portuguese journalists who were reporting on the current wave of demonstrations against the preliminary results from the 9 October general elections.
The journalists are Alfredo Leite and Marc Ricardo Silva, special envoys from the Correio de Manha (CM) group, sent to Mozambique to cover the demonstrations. Last week, says MISA, they were escorted to the airport to leave the country. On Sunday, they took a plane to Lisbon
According to Alfredo Leite, cited by Correio de Manha on Thursday, the Portuguese authorities justified the expulsion on the grounds that the two journalists were travelling on tourist visas rather than work visas.
A MISA statement condemned the expulsion “in the most vehement terms”. The two journalists, it said, were merely “complying with their role of informing which is universally recognised in democracies, since it is a guarantee of the right to information that all citizens enjoy”.
MISA “regrets that instead of concentrating on effective solutions to the post-election crisis, the Mozambican authorities are insisting on the wrong strategy of harassing journalists”.
It suggested that, “instead of harassing journalists and other messengers of the current crisis, the authorities should concentrate on solving the problem, which arose from an electoral process that was neither transparent nor honest”.
For MISA, the demand for a work visa to cover a specific event was just “an expedient to expel journalists who are exposing the excesses of the Mozambican authorities during the demonstrations”.
The two Portuguese journalists claimed that using tourist visas is a common practice when covering crisis situations, and reporters need to move quickly. They cited recent cases such as the wars in Ukraine and Lebanon.
MISA warned the authorities that “this sort of practice does not help project the name of Mozambique in the outside world. On the contrary these violations may besmirch still further the name of Mozambique which currently does not enjoy a good reputation in matters of fundamental freedoms such as the freedoms of expression and of the press”.
(AIM)
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