Open Society decries media harassment

The media in Angola is operating under increasingly difficult conditions, Open Society representative and freelance journalist Rafael Marques said in a statement on Monday. The statement coincided with a decision by independent Catholic-run Rádio Ecclésia to suspend all news reports in favour of religious broadcasts only - and a plea to Angolans to pray.

Marques attributed the suspension to government pressure on the station, but its director, Father Antonio Jaca, said the station was in the process of revamping its programming. A Lusa report quoted him as saying the aim of the suspension was to “reflect on the country’s new situation and reformulate the radio’s operations, namely in the information structure”. He dismissed suggestions in state-controlled media that the station was partial to the rebel movement UNITA, saying that it had limited its reports to facts that have “so far never been denied”. He said the station would resume its broadcasts by midnight on Tuesday.

“Given the political tension and the war situation the country is experiencing, we would always be accused by one or the other side. It is true that many people are not pleased by the information we report,” he said, but added that there was a need to “ensure greater involvement in national political life by civil society that barely existed a year ago”.

In his statement, Marques highlighted several other cases which he said indicated that the “media situation in Angola is rapidly deteriorating”. One of them was the police’s manhandling of himself and BBC correspondent Justin Pearce in the shantytown settlement of Boa Vista in Luanda on 8 July. He said they were manhandled by the police and expelled from the neighbourhood for trying to report on the relocation of thousands of residents to the outskirts of the city. Most of the residents moved to the area after fleeing the civil war in other parts of the country. Mora Jorge, a Radio Ecclesia journalist, was barred from reporting on the event, Marques said.

Another case he cited was the arrest of Gilberto Neto, a journalist with the independent weekly newspaper ‘Folha 8’, on 7 July. He said Neto was arrested in Malange province with foreign researcher Phillippe Lebillon. Investigators said after interrogating the pair that they had “illegally gone to Malange province”, said Marques. The pair were released and ordered to appear in court next Tuesday.

In yet another case, Marques said, a group of nine journalists from the province of Kwanza-Norte were branded as pro-UNITA and as enemies of the state by local authorities. They had sent a letter of protest to the provincial attorney and were waiting for a response, he added.