Dakar, March 15, 2024—Togolese authorities must end the legal harassment of the country’s Tampa Express newspaper and its publishing director Francisco Napo-Koura, reverse the three-month suspension of La Dépêche newspaper, and allow Togolese media to report freely and without fear of reprisal, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. Napo-Koura is due to appear in…
New York, January 23, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by findings that the phones of Togolese journalists Loïc Lawson and Anani Sossou were infected with Pegasus spyware in 2021, and repeats its calls for an immediate moratorium on the use of such surveillance technologies and for legal proceedings against the journalists to be…
New York, November 15, 2023 – Togolese authorities should immediately and unconditionally release journalists Loic Lawson and Anani Sossou, and reform the country’s laws and regulations to ensure journalism is not criminalized, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday. On Tuesday, November 14, an investigating judge at a Lomé court charged Lawson, publication director of…
New York, May 10, 2023—Togolese authorities should ensure that journalist Edouard Kamboissoa Samboe and all other members of the media can work without fear, and should drop any restrictions on Samboe’s work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday. On the morning of April 30, Togolese soldiers arrested Samboe, the founder and owner of the…
New York, March 17, 2023 — In response to news reports that a Togolese court on Wednesday sentenced journalists Ferdinand Ayité and Isidore Kouwonou to three years in prison for insulting authorities, the Committee to Protect Journalists released the following statement of condemnation: “Togolese authorities should not contest the appeals of L’Alternative publisher Ferdinand Ayité…
Accra, March 6, 2023–Togolese authorities should drop all legal proceedings against journalists Ferdinand Ayité and Isidore Kouwonou and allow them to work free from harassment or threat of arrest, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. Both journalists have been summoned to the country’s High Court in the capital city of Lomé for a trial…
On October 5, 2022 a court in Lomé suspended the privately owned Liberté newspaper for three months and fined the company and two of its staff members a total of 12 million West African francs (US$17,800) for publishing erroneous information about the prime minister, according to local media reports and the director of Liberté, Médard Amétépé, who spoke to the…
How zero-click surveillance threatens reporters, sources, and global press freedom By Fred Guterl Published October 13, 2022 Aida Alami has always been wary of surveillance. As a journalist from Morocco, a state with a track record of intercepting phone calls and messages of political rivals, activists, and journalists, she habitually took precautions to protect her…
One year after news broke about a list of over 50,000 phone numbers allegedly selected for surveillance with Pegasus spyware, journalists around the world continue to live and work with the fear that their phones can be used to track their conversations and penetrate all the personal and professional data stored on their devices. The…
New York, December 13, 2021 — Togolese authorities should immediately release journalists Ferdinand Ayité and Joël Egah and halt legal harassment of Isidore Kouwonou, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On December 9, national police officers arrested Ayité, the publication director of the privately owned L’Alternative newspaper, after he responded to a summons to…