Brussels, Aug. 18, 2025 (Lusa) - The European Commission's foreign policy spokesperson, Anitta Hipper, on Sunday condemned Guinea-Bissau's decision to expel Portuguese media outlets from the country, calling it a "regrettable restriction" on freedom of expression.

"Guinea-Bissau's decision to expel several international media outlets is a regrettable restriction on freedom of expression and public space," wrote Anitta Hipper on her social media account X.

The government of Guinea-Bissau decided on Friday to expel the delegations of the Lusa agency, RTP and RDP from the country, suspend their broadcasts with immediate effect and order their representatives to leave the country by Tuesday. No reasons were given for this decision.

"An open society must be able to count on a diversity of voices," added the spokesperson for the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Kaja Kallas.

Visiting Cabo Verde today, Guinean President Umaro Sissoco Embaló declined to explain the reasons for the expulsion of the Portuguese media, explaining that the problem is between Guinea-Bissau and Portugal.

"It's a problem between Guinea-Bissau and Portugal, not Cabo Verde. I'm not going to answer that," said the Guinean President when questioned by journalists at the Government Palace in Praia.

"I'm not going to say anything about Portugal in Cabo Verde," emphasised Sissoco Embaló.

Faced with the journalists' insistence that freedom of expression and the press are universal values, Sissoco Embaló rejected the idea that these values are at stake in Guinea-Bissau.

"You can go to Guinea-Bissau and see if freedom of expression is banned. Ask me that question in Guinea-Bissau," he said.

The President of Guinea-Bissau arrived in Cabo Verde on Sunday for a visit to show solidarity with Cape Verde's people after the storm that hit the island of São Vicente on 11 August, causing nine deaths and more than two hundred homeless people, as well as the destruction of houses, roads and water and energy supply infrastructure.

The visit, which was initially scheduled for Friday, was postponed until Sunday due to a breakdown in the plane that was to transport the Guinean President, according to information from Cabo Verde's authorities.

The Guinean head of state was received at the Government Palace by the prime minister, José Ulisses Correia e Silva.

The visit that the President of Guinea-Bissau had scheduled for Monday to the headquarters of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries in Lisbon was also postponed.

Guinea-Bissau currently holds the presidency of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), which it assumed at the organisation's summit on July 18 in the Guinean capital.

The Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) repudiated the expulsion of the representatives of the Portuguese media, which it labelled "highly reprehensible and unjustifiable", and expressed its intention to ask the Guinean government for explanations.

CFF/ADB // ADB.

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