Maputo — The Criminal Investigation Police (PIC) in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado are demanding that a journalist reveal his sources for a story published in April that annoyed local military officers, reports Friday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias".

The journalist, Jonas Wazir, a correspondent for the Beira paper "Diario de Mocambique", is standing his ground, pointing out that the police demand is absolutely illegal.

The 1991 press law explicitly defends the right of journalists not to reveal their sources. The relevant article in the law reads: "It is recognised that journalists have a right of professional secrecy with regard to the origins of the information that they transmit or broadcast, and they shall not suffer any sanctions for remaining silent".

The article published under Wazir's name on 21 April concerned illicit charges made by officers in the military recruitment centre in the Cabo Delgado provincial capital, Pemba.

In the year of their 18th birthday, all citizens have e legal obligation to register for military service. Wazir discovered that at the weekends, when there were no queues, officers were charging young Mozambicans 50 meticais (about two US dollars) each for registering them, a service that is supposed to be free of charge.

When he denounced this illegality, Wazir mentioned the name of one of the recruiting officers, Dinis Mirole. On 4 May, Mirole burst into the school where Wazir is a part time teacher and threatened him. "The consequences that will flow from the story you wrote will be entirely your responsibility", he said.

Mirole complained to the local prosecutor's office, and for the past three weeks PIC has been harassing Wazir, demanding to know the names of his sources, who are obviously some of the citizens who told him how money had been extorted from them at the recruiting office. Despite being repeatedly summoned to the PIC offices, Wazir has refused to give any names.

He has been backed by the Mozambican chapter of the regional press freedom body MISA (Media Institute of Southern Africa). The Cabo Delgado provincial nucleus of MISA-Mozambique has denounced "illegal intimidation of journalists", and has urged Wazir not to bend before threats.