Filipe Nyusi’s reelection as president and a fragile peace deal with former army rebels have not slowed the worrying decline in press freedom. The October 2019 election confirmed the ruling party’s grip on most of the media while a European Union electoral observation mission described coverage of the election as one-sided. There is a great deal of pressure on independent journalists, and attacks against reporters have been common during previous elections, especially the local elections in 2018. Fortunately for the international media, plans for a drastic hike in accreditation fees for foreign reporters have yet to be implemented. A range of administrative and financial restrictions tend to hamper the emergence of new media outlets. On the eve of a papal visit to Mozambique in September 2019, RSF and 11 other human rights groups wrote to Pope Francis asking him to press the Mozambican authorities to respect and promote human rights at a time when press freedom is under threat. Accessing the north of the country, the site of an Islamist insurrection, is now virtually impossible without risking arrest. Two journalists who tried were detained for four months in 2019 and are still charged with inciting hostility against state officials and insulting them. Another journalist has been missing since April 2020. The information blackout also affects international media, which are finding it increasingly difficult to get permission to cover this story. A British journalist who had been based in Mozambique for years and who founded a leading news site was expelled on spurious grounds and was banned from returning for the next decade – a punishment of unprecedented severity in recent years in southern Africa.
Mozambique
