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Mozambique journalists, academic face libel charges

Johannesburg - An international rights group has condemned the libel trial of a journalist and an academic in Mozambique.

Amnesty International said in a statement on Tuesday that economist Carlos Nuno Castel-Branco is on trial for criticizing a former president in a 2013 Facebook post. Newspaper editor Fernando Mbanze is being prosecuted for abusing press freedom by republishing the commentary.

Amnesty International said Castel-Branco wrote an open letter questioning how then President Armando Guebuza ran the southern African country.

The state news agency, AIM, said a third reporter, currently in Portugal, has also been charged.

AIM reported that Mozambique's National Union of Journalists demanded the charges be dropped.

According to AIM, the men are being tried under a sweeping state security law, which classifies defaming a president as a security offence.

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