Even though Guinea-Bissau is known for its ancient history as part of the Mali empire, its beautiful Bijagós archipelagos and rich linguistic variety, the West African nation has become the source for outrage.
On Friday 15th August 2025, Bissau has demanded the suspension of the Portuguese news agencies RTP, RDP and the LUSA association prohibiting any kind of journalist activities for these institutions, while setting an ultimatum for journalists of Portuguese nationality to leave the country until 19th August 2025.
This rash decision set the soil for deteriorating relations with Portugal, as foreign minister Paulo Rangel demanded an immediate meeting with Guinean ambassador Arthur Silva in Lisbon, about which not much has been reported further.
However, the affected Portuguese news agencies released a common statement in which the shutdown was described as a “deliberate attack on the freedom of speech” accusing the administration of Embaló to adapt “attitudes that equally violate the democracy and the state of law”.
While Guinea-Bissau stated to be open to dialogue with Portugal, there is no official statement for the reason of the recent news media ban.
Might there be a possible explanation for such sudden behavior?
Guinea-Bissau’s political instability
Although represented in international and intergovernmental bodies, the country has been in a serious governmental crisis for more than 2 years.
Due to a clash between the national armed forces and the presidential battalion, president Embaló has dissolved the parliament as the attacks were believed to be associated with a coup d’état.
While elections are scheduled for late November 2025, experts estimate that the current administration leans towards maintaining the status quo, after Embaló unilaterally appointed Braima Camará as the state’s prime minister.
Offering this position to a former political adversary paves the way for more favor among the own ranks, thus increasing the likelihood of removing barriers to a new presidential term.
Given these seemingly more autocratic tendencies alongside other political and economical shortcomings within the country, Guinea-Bissau’s reason for the recent expulsion of Portuguese journalists could be to limit critical news as they would potentially damage the state’s reputation just before holding new elections.
On the other hand, looking at the foreign policy implications this action has it seems rather irrational as Guinea-Bissau is currently chairing the Community of countries of the Portuguese Language (CPLP).
Being an international organization strengthening cohesion among all lusophone nations, banning news agencies from one of its most important members sends a strong signal of dissonance, which equally damages Bissau’s own reputation in that context.
Bringing in yet another perspective, the expulsion could be equally interpreted as a decolonial approach of breaking away from European cooperations in a similar manner to Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré.
Indeed, both countries have communicated increased interest in a South-South cooperation with Guinea-Bissau drawing inspiration from the Pan-African Burkinabe leader.
Additionally, in the past two years Ouagadougou has also adapted a hostile policy towards journalists voicing critically against Traoré’s administration, mirroring a common understanding of this issue to its lusophone West African counterpart.
In conclusion, Embaló’s motivation behind the suspension of RTP, RDP and the Lusa network remains unclear: was the expulsion of journalists actually a decolonial signaling to the world, or merely yet another autocratic attempt of silencing critical voices about his administration?
While the latter may seem more likely to be true in light of past examples as well as current developments in Sub-Saharan African politics, future evidence and statements will hopefully provide a bigger picture to draw a definite conclusion.
