F

reedom of expression in Mozambique
is exercised by citizens and journalists
of independent media, except the media
controlled by the government (Televisão de
Moçambique, Rádio
Moçambique
and
the newspaper Notícias), where there
is more self-censorship. The same freedom is amplified by social media, where
citizens express themselves without fear,
seeing that there are plenty of situations
for sharing information freely and of
“public outrage” at the management of
public affairs.
In 2015, there was a government attempt to instil fear at the universities and
on social media sites. For example, the
murder of university professor and constitutional law expert Giles Cistac for his
academic position on matters relating to
autonomous provinces, an attempt to introduce a draft Law on the Regulation of
Electronic Transactions and the prosecution and trial of the economist Carlos
Nuno Castel-Branco and two journalists,
Fernando Veloso and Fernando Mbanze.
The first for writing a letter on his Facebook page criticising the government
of former President of Mozambique,
Armando Guebuza, and journalists Fernando Mbanze and Fernando Veloso for
reproducing the economist’s letter in
their respective newspapers, Media Fax
and Canal de Moçambique. Both the
death of the constitutional law expert as
well as the trial of the economist and the
two journalists remain unresolved. The
criminal police is yet to publicly clarify
the circumstances that led to the death
of the academic and as for the trial of
the journalists, although the defendants
were acquitted by the court of the City
of Maputo, the public prosecutor appealed to the Supreme Court for a final

44

So This is Democracy? 2015

outcome. These are all clear signs of attempts to create fear and limit the space
for the exercise of freedom of expression.
With regard to the Broadcasting Law, it
must be stressed that there is no law that
regulates this media sector. Broadcasting
is currently governed by the Press Law
18/91, of 10 August, which is very out of
step with the growing broadcasting industry, although there was an attempt to
create the draft of a law in a joint effort
by the Information Office and the National Trade Union of Journalists (SNJ),
FORCOM and MISA-Mozambique, but
the process stalled.
The migration from analogue to digital
is one of the current issues that has attracted a lot of criticism from civil society and professional communication
organisations. The problem of digital
migration has to do with the way of process is being conducted, culminating in
it being awarded to Startimes Software
Technology Co. The process involves
irregularities that will harm the state,
citizens in general and in particular the
private sector working in the radio and
television sectors. The first major issue is
that the deal will cost state coffers $ 300
million dollars and will directly benefit
the company of the family of the former
head of state

Right to Information Law
The constitution of the Republic of Mozambique, in Article No. 48 establishes
that any Mozambican citizen has the
right to freedom of expression, freedom
of the press and right to information.
Access to information is one of the main
issues in contemporary Mozambique,
given that we live in an era of two-way
information flow to satisfy a number of
public and private uses; the lack of inter-

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