A group of journalists from some independent papers demonstrated at the headquaters of the Mozambican journalistas Trade Union (SNJ)in Maputo on Friday against the presence of the Zimbabwean Minister of Information, Jonathan Moyo, who had been invited to give a press conference there.
They said that the demonstration was to protest against the lack of press freedom in Moyo's country.
As part of his four day visit to Mozambique, that started on Wednesday, Moyo was due to meet the country's journalists to discuss a number of issues related to press freedom in both countries and in the region.
The fact is that as soon as Moyo stepped into the SNJ conference room he was confronted with that small group standing with banners protesting against Moyo's presence at SNJ and his government's policy against the press.
"Moyo, a snake has always been a snake", read one of the banners, while its bearers were chanting "Moyo, go away". "In Mozambique there is freedom of press and more papers are springing, while you are closing down", would read some other banners.
Once in the conference room, and seeing the demonstration, Moyo asked his giests if that was a political meeting or with journalists as planned?
The group of demonstrators took the chance to make claims that had nothing to do with Moyo's visit. They started demanding elections within SNJ. This is a hot issue within SNJ.
During this demonstration, Moyo and his delegation remained in the room, for about an hour, to the embarassment of the Mozambican hosts. The demonstration only ended with Moyo's departure.
AIM contacted SNJ secretary Hilario Matusse for his reaction, who expressed surprise at the demonstration, because he was "fully convinced that the press conference was of the interest of all journalists".
"In our understanding, the situation in Zimbabwe is of our interest as neighbours, and thus, when we learned that the Minister(of information) was visiting Mozambique, we negotiated with the Information Office (GABINFO) to include a meeting with us journalists in his programme", said Matusse.
"We saw that this was an opportunity for the Mozambican journalists to question, or criticise or even present their points of view regarding the situation of the press in Zimbabawe", he added.
In Mozambique, Moyo held a number of meetings with personalities of the Mozambican government, including the Prime Minister, and visited various media institutions, such as the Mozambique News Agency (AIM), the Mozambican Television channel (TVM), and Radio Mozambique (RM).
Fonte: AIM
