Committee to Protect Journalists Demands Return of Equipment Seized from Mozambican Reporter Estacio Valoi
The Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Mozambican authorities to return the personal and work equipment seized from journalist Estacio Valoi and to stop intimidating reporters covering environmental crimes and conflict in Cabo Delgado province.
On June 16, three agents from Mozambique’s National Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC) went to Estacio Valoi’s home in Pemba and confiscated his phones, computers, and tablets under a judicial order. The May 25 search warrant issued by the Pemba City Judicial Court did not specify the reason for the seizure of his equipment. Valoi said he was facing a coordinated offensive of intimidation over his reporting on timber smuggling in Cabo Delgado. The government of Mozambique has been fighting an Islamic State-linked insurgency in the province since 2017. The Committee to Protect Journalists stated that journalists in Cabo Delgado face extraordinary risks from conflict, corruption, and environmental crime reporting, compounded by judicial harassment.
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