Maputo, Mozambique — Mozambican Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi Thursday declared that the government remains committed to "the consolidation of press freedom in Mozambique."
On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, Mocumbi said "the government vehemently rejects any attempt to throttle press freedom, including any intimidation or assault upon journalists." He reiterated government's commitment to bringing to justice those who murdered Mozambique's best known journalist, Carlos Cardoso, editor of the independent daily "Metical" last November.
Those who pulled the trigger and those who gave the orders "must be tracked down, tried and severely punished for their crime," Mocumbi declared.
(To date eight suspects are in custody including former bank manager Vicente Ramaya and businessmen Ayob Abdul Satar and Momade Assife Abdul Satar, all thought to have ordered the killing. They were among key suspects in the theft of some 14 million US dollars from the country's largest bank - a matter Cardoso had persistently investigated.)
Mocumbi declared that he was in solidarity with "all those who, by word and by deed, are committed to press freedom in Mozambique and in the world."
"We express our solidarity with all those who work to promote, anywhere in the world, active press freedom," he said, adding "this declaration itself is one of the ways to express what we would wish to see practised not only in our country, but in the world."
