Journalist detained in crackdown

An Angolan journalist was questioned by police on Monday, the latest victim of the government's crackdown on independent reporting of the war by the private media. Gilberto Neto was detained on Friday for 12 hours and returned on Monday for further questioning, a journalist at his newspaper 'Folha 8' told IRIN. Neto was summoned by police because of the newspaper's coverage of the arrest of 10 journalists last month for broadcasting an interview with UNITA rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, news reports said. Angola's communications minister, Hendrik Vaal Neto, earlier this year warned newspapers and radio stations that they faced closure if they did not take a patriotic stance when reporting on the country's civil war. "You have to be a nationalist before being a journalist," he reportedly said. "The problem is the declaration by the minister of information," an independent journalist told IRIN on Monday. "It's very, very dangerous now to report on the situation of the war, the situation of corruption, the situation of business."