Journos charged with trespassing
Journos arrested in Mozambique charged with trespassing and invasion of privacy.
MAPUTO – Mozambique authorities have charged two international journalists, one from Germany and the other from Sweden, with trespassing and invasion of privacy in connection with their investigation into rhino poaching.
The journalists, Bartholomäus Grill, a correspondent for the German magazine Der Spiegel, and the Swedish photographer Torbjörn Selander, were apprehended by residents in the village of Mavodze in southern Mozambique on February 16.
The villagers accused them of being spies and took them to the police station where they were held for several hours. According to Selander, who spoke to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), they were released after the German and Swedish embassies had intervened on their behalf.
They were scheduled to appear in court on Monday March 2, in the same village where they had been arrested, and Selander said they were not happy about that and feared for their safety.
The journalists said the individual pressing charges was the alleged kingpin in the illegal wildlife trade.
Grill and Selander were looking for an individual who was known as the kingpin of rhino poaching and was considered a “godfather” in the village.
Agence France-Presse said earlier that the kingpin led the life of a modern day Robin Hood – stealing to give to the poor – according to Grill.
The village borders South Africa’s Kruger National Park and forms part of a vast transfrontier conservation area. Poaching is an important source of income for this community.
“Journalistic investigations into rhino poaching and the corruption that sustains it should be welcomed, not punished,” Sue Valentine, CPJ’s Africa programme coordinator, told Lowvelder.
She added that this was a good opportunity for the Mozambique authorities to assist the journalists and to end this illegal trade that risked undermining the valuable eco-tourism economy in the region. “They should target the criminals and not the messengers!”
She also said that they, the CPJ, the journalists and the rest of the world, would feel more confident if the trial took place in a court in the capital city of Maputo.
The CPJ said that 11 journalists were killed in 2014, mostly in the Iraq and Afghanistan, but scores were missing, and feared dead.
