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Alert

Journalist receives death threat, motive unclear

(MISA/IFEX) - 'Marafaele Mohloboli, a "Lesotho Times" journalist and MISA Lesotho deputy chairperson, received a threatening note at her home in Maseru on 23 September 2009.

Mohloboli told MISA Lesotho that on the morning of 23 September at around 6:00 a.m., her son saw that a note had been pushed underneath the main entrance to the house. The note read, "You think you are smart you bitch and you think you are the world in the media fraternity. I am going to strangle your neck and twist it until you die you son of a bitch. You are going to pay with your life for the rest of all the journalists. One wonders (where you come from when you are so wild like this)."

The note further read, "Make sure you watch your back, I will be following you every day until I take you to your grave. You will regret that you were ever born. You are all over the place and we can't even enjoy our freedom anywhere near you. You are better off removed and then those Zimbabweans ('Lesotho Times' editors) will start to see that you are better off dead."

Mohloboli said she had no idea who might be behind the threats. "I don't have suspects because I cannot link this to anything," she said. There has been a decrease in the number of media violations and abuse cases in Lesotho since the end of political tensions that plagued the country in 2007.