The employees of Radiodifusão da Guiné Bissau demonstrated this Monday, December 11, against the occupation of the radio station by police officers and the imposition of a new director by force. The journalists denounce “an assault on national radio”.
Two hundred journalists and technicians from Guinea Bissau’s National Broadcasting protested this Monday, December 11, against the censorship they have been subjected to since the arrival of a new head of the organization. The change in management came a day after President Umaro Sissoco Embaló dissolved the National People’s Assembly and the government.
The employees of Radiodifusão Nacional are complaining of censorship, explains the president of the Union of Journalists and Media Technicians, Indira Correia Balde.
As they explained to the union, “on Tuesday night, the new director went to the radio station with men in uniform to announce that from that moment on he would be the director of the station, without presenting any documents. The workers understood that this was an assault on the institution”.
The 20 or so journalists tried to demonstrate in front of Radio Nacional to denounce the new guidelines: “to report information that concerns the government and not the opposition. News that concerns the Presidency of the Republic”.
Given the situation in Guinea-Bissau, “journalists from Radiodifusão Nacional can only report information that comes from the Presidency of the Republic. The opposing party has no right to airtime,” describes Indira Correia Balde.