Government warns media

Angola’s communications minister, Hendrik Vaal Neto, has warned newspapers and radio stations that they faced closure if they did not take a patriotic stance reporting the country’s civil war. In remarks carried on state radio this week, Neto said recent news reports had “insulted” the government and “discouraged” young men from heeding a military conscription campaign. Diplomats in Luanda and regional press watchdogs told IRIN on Wednesday that it was not the first time the authorities had warned of a crackdown and accused journalists of being “unpatriotic” or “inciting treason”. Neto said: “You have to be a nationalist before being a journalist.” He also recalled a decree stipulating that they only report news on the war against UNITA rebels released by the government. Raashied Galant of the Namibia-based Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) said it was “frightening to see the drastic increase in the level of open attacks on the media in Angola since late last year” after the resumption of the civil war. He said there were still a handful of independent weekly newspapers and magazines in Angola. “But there is such a disturbing lack of accountability and the authorities act with such impunity that such threats from the government now are much more serious,” he said. “We have to look at it and act on it very seriously because Angolan journalists at present have no avenues of legal recourse to contest actions taken against them even though the constitution guarantees the freedom of speech and press freedom.” He said the government was seeking to limit what could be reported about the war and detaining independent reporters. A Luanda-based diplomat said that in a build-up to his broadcast on Tuesday, excerpts of his remarks had been carried by radio and television for a week beforehand. He said the government had also been angered at reports on corruption and other issues deemed “politically sensitive”.