(MISA/IFEX) – On 30 September 2000, security guards from Mozambique’s main opposition party, Renamo, threatened two journalists and tried to prevent them from covering a weekend meeting in the central city of Chimoio, despite the fact that the journalists had been invited to the meeting. The Mozambican news agency AIM says the two reporters involved […]
(MISA/IFEX) – On 30 September 2000, security guards from Mozambique’s main opposition party, Renamo, threatened two journalists and tried to prevent them from covering a weekend meeting in the central city of Chimoio, despite the fact that the journalists had been invited to the meeting.
The Mozambican news agency AIM says the two reporters involved were Victor Machirica, the Chimoio correspondent for the country’s main daily paper “Noticias”, and Castigo Luis, who works for the Manica provincial station of Radio Mozambique.
Machirica told “Noticias” that on being invited to the meeting, which was addressed by two Renamo Parliamentary deputies, he decided to go and take notes. However, when he decided to leave the meeting early, he was pursued by five Renamo security guards. “A few metres from the building these men forced me to stop, and began asking what I had in my pockets, why I was writing when the Renamo deputies were speaking, and why I did not stay until the end of the meeting,” he told “Noticias”.
The security guards wanted to seize Machirica’s notebook, which he refused to hand over. They were about to take the notebook by force when a Renamo woman official, who recognised
Machirica, stopped them, and apologised to the reporter.
Machirica said that during his confrontation with the five Renamo guards, they threatened to beat him and accused him of collecting information for the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo). Machirica further reported that the Renamo security guards refused to allow the other reporter, Luis, to enter the building where the meeting was being held. “They said he wanted to tape the statements of the Renamo speakers in order to pass them on to Frelimo,” recalled Machirica. “They tried to grab his tape recorder, and threatened to attack him physically.”
Both the Mozambican Journalists Union (SNJ), and the Mozambican branch of the Media Institute of Southern Africa condemned the Chimoio incidents. The chairperson of MISA-Mozambique, Salomao Moyana, called on the Renamo leadership to publicly apologise to the two reporters.
