Maputo, 21 Sep (AIM) – Senior Mozambican journalist, Tomas Vieira Mario, has denounced the current public consultation on new mass media laws as “a pretence”.
Vieira Mario, cited in the independent daily “O Pais”, said the consultations were just a sham, and the final document will merely answer to “political interests”.
The bill on the media that will go before the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, has been re-drafted repeatedly, Vieira Mario did not believe that the current procedure will lead to any good results. He regarded the bill as ambiguous and, riddled with vague and problematic terminology.
He was particularly angered by an article on media ownership which would allow the State to acquire holdings in private media groups. Although this is dressed up with chatter about “public interest criteria”, Vieira Mario regarded any state takeover of private media as a threat to the freedoms of the press and of expression.
The bill also introduces a new government-run Mass Media Regulatory Authority, which seems to usurp the powers of the constitutionally enshrined Higher Mass Media Council (CSCS). Vieira Mario is a former chairperson of the CSCS, as well as of the Mozambican chapter of the regional press freedom body MISA (Media Institute of Southern Africa).
The new body would also deprive the current government Press Office (Gabinfo) of its power to license, inspect and sanction the mass media. The bill does not make it clear whether Gabinfo would continue in any form at all.
Another piece of unwarranted interference is the demand that any media outlet, with five journalists or more, must set up an Editorial Council, regardless of whether the journalists want such a body.
Particularly alarming is an article in the bill which elevates the President of the Republic, and foreign heads of state, above the law. Any criticism of the President will make the journalist who wrote it, and the media where it was published, liable to a defamation suit, and the fact that the criticism is true will be no defence.
This deeply shocking clause extends to foreign heads of state, no matter how murderous their behaviour.
(AIM)
Pf/ (363)
