Renamo, Mozambique’s main opposition party, and MDM, a third party, accused the police of “brutal aggression” and “state terrorism” in suppressing peaceful demonstrations last Saturday in Maputo and other cities across the country.
“The police had a duty to protect the population, but they began to shoot indiscriminately against the protesters. Shots were heard, brutal attacks were seen, protesters screamed in despair and disproportionate use of weapons,” said the president of Mozambique’s National Resistance (Renamo), Ossufo Momade.
Describing the authorities’ actions as a “hard blow to democracy,” Momade pointed out that the police violence trampled on the country’s legislation on freedom of demonstration and assembly, and stressed that these rights do not require any authorization from public entities.
For his part, the president of the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), Luther Simango, also repudiated the violence last Saturday, considering it “State terrorism.”
“It was, yes, an exhibition of State terrorism, which must be fought in all its dimensions,” Simango said.
That party leader warned that the repression will not prevent society from exercising its constitutional rights, regretting that police violence occurs at a time when Mozambique is a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
The president of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), a state entity, but independent of the Government, Luís Bitone, accused the police of “excessive use of force” in the way in which they responded to the call for the march on Saturday in Maputo.
“The Defense and Security Forces acted with excessive use of force, their role, at that time, was only to protect the movement of people to avoid excesses by the protesters,” he said, in statements to the newspaper O País .
Bitone fears that Mozambique could be censored by other states, becoming the target of negative “consequences” at the international level.
“The consequences will be a moral condemnation, that is, there will be censorship from other states against our country,” stressed the president of the CNDH.
Luís Bitone pointed out that the events on Saturday in Maputo show a setback in the country’s reputation and stressed that Mozambique “has evolved a lot in the observance of human rights.”
Bitone said that he will ask the Public Ministry for an investigation and clarifications from the Ministry of the Interior on the actions of the authorities.
A man was left without an eye and several people were injured, after the police charge that took place on Saturday against an attempted march in honor of the “rapper” of social intervention and activist Azagaia, who died on the 9th of an illness.
In addition to Maputo, other Mozambican cities also had impassable marches by the police, even after being authorized by the municipal authorities.
Source: TSF
