Moz: Press freedom violated
2005-08-10 22:42
Maputo - Mozambican authorities violated the freedom of the press several times last year and even created a "climate of fear" in some districts, the head of a Southern African media watchdog has said.
"Between January and December 2004, the freedom of the press was violated several times," Salomao Moyana of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) told a news conference on Tuesday.
"In some districts there is an atmosphere of fear ," he said.
He said this was specially true of local community radio networks where district administrators played around with news content and often "assumed the role of editors".
A 104-page Misa report also slammed legal proceedings against some journalists, including one who was detained over an article in which a prominent human rights activist claimed that corruption was rife in a provincial attorney general's office.