The Portuguese-speaking west African nation announced the expulsion of public broadcaster RTP and news agency Lusa on Friday, suspending their programming and giving their staff until Tuesday to leave the country.
Their expulsion is “a flagrant violation of pluralism and the right to information of the people of Guinea-Bissau”, said the press freedom watchdog, known by its French acronym RSF.
Guinea-Bissau gave no explanation for the move, but RSF noted it comes ahead of the country’s November election, whose date was set by President Umaro Sissoco Embalo.
Embalo was sworn in for a five-year term on February 27, 2020 after a disputed election, but last February he sparked political turmoil when he announced that elections would not be held until November.
As of Tuesday only local staff, who were not told to leave the country, remained at the outlets: “We are at our stations as usual, but we are not reporting,” one of the journalists told AFP.
According to RSF, Prime Minister Braima Camara said Friday on the sidelines of a meeting on the electoral process that the outlets “must understand that Guinea-Bissau is a sovereign country”.
When Embalo was asked about the expulsions during a visit to Cape Verde on Sunday, he told journalists the case “only concerns Guinea-Bissau and Portugal”.
RSF said the move “sends a worrying signal to all media professionals, which could lead to self-censorship and undermine the editorial quality of election coverage”.
Portugal’s foreign minister met with his Guinea-Bissau counterpart for discussions on Monday.
Radio and Television Portugal (RTP), which comprises both the RTP television and RDP radio stations, has already been suspended by Guinea-Bissau on several occasions.
In July its journalist Waldir Araujo was beaten by a group of unidentified individuals who accused him and RTP of “tarnishing Guinea-Bissau’s image abroad”, RSF said.
Among the world’s poorest countries and with a reputation for rampant corruption, Guinea-Bissau has laboured under a succession of coups since independence from Portugal in 1974.
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© Agence France-Presse
