Portugal's government on Friday condemned the expulsion of
reporting teams of state news agency Lusa and two African units
of broadcaster RTP from Guinea-Bissau in the run-up to a
postponed election scheduled to be held in November in the West
African country.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement it had "immediately
summoned the ambassador of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau in
Lisbon for explanations and clarifications" for a meeting that
will take place on Saturday.
"The Portuguese government strongly condemns the decision of
the government of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau to order the
removal of Lusa, RTP Africa, and RDP Africa from that country
and their respective termination of broadcasts," it said,
calling the move "highly reprehensible and unjustifiable".
No explanations for the move were provided by either
Guinea-Bissau, which announced the expulsion in a government
decree earlier on Friday, or Portugal. The representatives of
the media outlets have until August 19 to leave the country.
Guinea-Bissau's President Umaro Sissoco Embalo said in March he
would run for a second term, backtracking on earlier promises
to step down and stoking tensions over postponed elections,
with his opponents saying that his term expired in February.
A dispute over when Embalo's presidential term, which began in
2020, should end has heightened tensions that risk unrest in
the former Portuguese colony with a history of military coups.
On August 7, Embalo, a former army general, appointed by decree
a new prime minister, Braima Camara - the third premier since
Embalo took office in 2020 - replacing Rui Duarte de Barros.
In March, a political mission of the Economic Community of West
Africa States (ECOWAS), deployed to help reach a consensus on
how to conduct the election, said it had to leave "following
threats by Umaro Sissoco Embalo to expel it".
The presidential and legislative elections are scheduled to be
held on November 23.
