By Estácio Valoi
The morning of Christmas’ Eve, 24 December 2025, dawned in a country in unequal motion. Cars sped by, music echoed through the streets, families prepared dinner, while others, paradoxically surrounded by millions of dollars worth of timber taken from their own backyards, remained in poverty. The world rushed towards Christmas and New Year celebrations, each at their own pace, each on their own journey. But, as happens every year, not everyone was celebrating. Some, as usual, continued to operate in the shadows.
It was in this context that I received a Christmas ‘gift’: an email laden with threats and intimidation, sent not only to me, but also to several national and international media outlets with which I collaborate. It was not a request for clarification, nor an exercise of the right of reply. It was a demand: to delete journalistic content under threat of legal action.
Although the sender formally referred to a single text (see:https://moz24h.co.mz/apreendidos-111-contentores-pertencentes-ao-misterioso-rei-do-contrabando-de-madeira-do-golfo/) the notification deliberately ignored the broader context: a series of investigations launched in 2024 and continuing into 2025 into the smuggling of timber from Mozambique to China, involving the company Safi Timber, which has been frequently identified by multiple sources as a key player in this network.
https://cjimoz.org.mz/news/na-floresta-ii/ .
For over a year, Safi Timber has consistently refused to respond to our requests to exercise our right of reply. https://www.zammagazine.com/investigations/1966-mozambique-nature-park-employees-decry-plunder-in-open-letter#:~:text=As%20employees%20of%20the%20Quirimbas,Control)%20Delegate%20Jorge%20Tassicane%20Mbofana.
In 2024, one of its representatives was explicit: ‘My partners will not respond. You can insist, but they do not want to respond.’ At that moment, the company chose silence. A strategic, prolonged, almost hibernating silence. Until, suddenly, it woke up, not to respond publicly to the investigations, but to intimidate journalists in court, precisely on the day that celebrates the birth of Christ, a symbol of justice and redemption for many.
- The Demand: Delete within 24 hours
The tone of Safi Timber’s email is revealing. It does not invite contradiction, it commands. It does not dialogue, it threatens. It does not clarify, it intimidates.
The company demands the removal of journalistic content, claiming that it falsely associates it with timber smuggling, the export of prohibited species, organised crime, undue influence on public authorities and attempts at bribery. To support this demand, it invokes court orders which, it claims, prove the legality of the seized cargo.
What Safi Timber omits is essential:
– that the articles in question are the result of journalistic investigations based on multiple sources;
– that the articles deal with matters of significant public interest;
– that the company voluntarily waived its right of reply for months;
– and that the existence of ongoing legal proceedings does not invalidate journalistic scrutiny, much less automatically render it illegal.
- The strategy: Spread fear, create urgency, force silence
On 24 December 2025, Safi Timber and its lawyers launched a coordinated offensive: emails, phone calls, messages, simultaneous contacts in Mozambique and abroad. The objective was clear: to create an atmosphere of pressure, fear and urgency, typical of so-called SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation), strategic legal actions designed not to win on merit, but to silence, wear down and intimidate.
Another email from Safi Timber followed, this time with a 72-hour deadline
“Confirmation of Legal Representation and Prior Contact
Dear Mr. Estácio Valoi,
We confirm receipt of your message.
For clarity and formal record, please note the following:
Legal Representation Already Contacted
Your legal representative, Mr. Augusto Armando Messariamba (MISA), has already been formally contacted by our legal advisor, and the relevant court documentation has been duly communicated….”
Safi Timber thus presented a document dated 30 October 2025, allegedly attributed to the Administrative Court (Case No. 234/2025), related to an article published on 24 August 2025. Five months after the initial publication, the company decided to react, not to correct the facts, but to use the judicial system as a tool to clean up its reputation.
The response was simple and clear: we will not delete or edit anything. If they want to sue, let them.
- Journalism cannot be silenced by email
The investigation continued, and the facts remain unchanged. We identified the alleged ‘mysterious trader’ based in the Gulf, referred to by AQUA officials as someone who ‘calls the Sofala Public Prosecutor’s Office’ to make illegal logging cases disappear. This is Nazih Safi, a Lebanese citizen who exports timber from Beira to China via the port of Shatian in Guangzhou, and whose forestry licences were recently revoked by the Mozambican government.
Officials also indicate that illegal timber from Quirimbas National Park circulated through schemes of institutional complicity and was then exported through the port of Beira. Local journalists confirm the trader’s regular presence in luxury venues, often in circles of power.
None of this was answered with facts. It was answered with intimidation.
- Abuse of the law and erosion of the law
The Mozambican Press Law, in paragraphs 1 to 5 of Article 33, is clear. The right of reply exists, but it has deadlines, forms and limits. Anyone who does not exercise this right within the legal deadline waives it. Anyone who wishes to correct facts must do so on the basis of arguments, not threats.
By deliberately ignoring these provisions and resorting to belated judicial intimidation, Safi Timber is not defending legality, it is exploiting it. It is using the law against its own democratic purpose.
- Conclusion
This case is not just about me. It is about civic space. It is about the right of Mozambican society to know how its natural resources are exploited, who benefits and who protects whom. It is about the attempt to normalise silence through fear.
History shows that time does not fall into a coma or hibernate. It passes. And with it, attempts at impunity leave a trail. Laws exist to protect rights, not to serve as a shield for opaque private interests. The judicial year was about to end on 31 December and begin again on 1 February. Journalism cannot be erased by email.
The truth cannot be removed in 24 hours. And intimidation will not replace accountability.
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