MISA Mozambique defended this Saturday, 26 October, that the limitation of internet services between Friday and Saturday was a deliberate action. The organisation also says that the intention was to limit the exchange of information in the context of the protests against the election results.
According to the newspaper O País, the organisation found that there had been bandwidth throttling, or simply ‘intentional limitation of broadband’, after carrying out investigations. ‘Through the verification carried out by Misa Regional at IODA (Internet Outage detection and Analysis), the speed of the internet in Mozambique was reduced on the afternoon of 25 October, in a context in which the country has been experiencing an environment of violent tension due to the announcement of the election results,’ it reads.
In addition, Misa said that the government intended not only to limit the right of the press and expression, but also to limit the exchange of information in the context of the demonstrations against the election results.
‘After violations against the freedom of the press and freedom of expression, through police violence, the government is once again violating freedom of expression by restricting citizens from circulating and exchanging information through digital platforms, as well as limiting business operations and social life, on a day when many Mozambicans are carrying out their activities remotely due to the violence on the streets,’ it concluded.
It should be noted that so far the operators have not given any explanations.
