Aim says that not a week has gone by without Zambeze publishing
articles making allegations against some of the figures most associated
with the fight against organized crime in Mozambique – notably lawyer
Albano Silva, Attorney-General Augusto Paulino, and judges of the
Supreme Court. Most of the allegations have been found to be untrue.
MISA-Mozambique describes these stories as a series of supposedly
journalistic texts that try to demonstrate an alleged subordination of
judges and prosecutors to the interests of the ruling party, but
without ever presenting any substantive evidence.
For the last three editions, Zambeze has attacked by name several
Supreme Court judges, holding them personally responsible for a variety
of judicial decisions, some of them dating from the period of the one
party state. MISA notes that Zambeze has indulged in a bout of
insults attacking the reputation, dignity and self-esteem of the
judges concerned.
Zambeze even tried to link current Supreme Court judges to the 1983
public execution by firing squad of an alleged smuggler, Gulam Nabi.
MISA does not go into this in any detail, but in fact no member of the
Supreme Court ever sat on the Revolutionary Military Tribunal (TMR)
responsible for this death sentence, and several are well known for
their opposition, not only to the death sentence, but also to the very
existence of exceptional courts, such as the now defunct TMR.
The Zambeze articles are not based on any fact of justified public
interest, the MISA statement accused, and violate the most elementary
principles of responsible journalism, based on the investigation of the
facts, on the truth of the facts, and on balance between sources.
MISA thus strongly repudiates this type of behavior in the Mozambican
media, and urged the Zambeze director, editor and journalists to end
their campaign, and to be guided instead by a sense of seriousness,
dignity and professional ethics.
MISA
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