Bissau, July 19, 2024 (Lusa) - The president of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, has called on the Public Prosecution Service and the Ministry for the Media to take action against the leadership of the country's main journalists' union, whose term in office he said had “lapsed”.

In comments on leaving a cabinet meeting, which he chaired, on Thursday, Sissoco Embaló reacted to the position taken by the Union of Journalists and Media Technicians (Sinjotecs) of Guinea-Bissau, which last week called for a boycott of coverage of the president's activities.

"I myself have boycotted the journalists," he said. "I decreed that I boycotted the Journalists' Union, which is a union that isn't even legal."

The president said that one can only speak when one is backed by the law.

"This is also because the attorney general's Office is not doing its job," he went on. "When you're not legal, you can't talk. The attorney general's office and the Ministry for the Media have to activate the mechanisms." 

The head of state reinforced his argument by saying that you cannot have a lapsed body speaking on behalf of an institution, arguing that the journalists' union cannot be owned by two or three people.

"I also boycotted that union of yours because it's not legal," said Embaló, referring to the leadership of Sinjotecs, chaired by Indira Correia Baldé, a journalist working for Portugal's public television channel RTP Africa in Guinea-Bissau.

On Sunday, Sinjotecs issued a note of repudiation and a call for a boycott of coverage of events related to the president after he responded with swear words on Saturday to a question from a journalist who had asked him about the date of the presidential elections, which several party leaders have demanded be held before the end of the year. 

Embaló argues that the elections should only be held at the end of 2025, after his term has ended in February 2025.

MB/ARO // ARO.

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