A year ago last week in Senegal, two reporters
covering a soccer match were assaulted with tasers, handcuffed, and abused by
police officers after the reporters refused to halt a post-game interview at
Léopold Sédar Senghor Stadium in the capital, Dakar. A year on, Senegalese law
enforcement has fallen short in bringing to account those responsible for this and
other abuses against the media.
The beating of sports
editor Babacar Kambel Dieng of Radio Futurs Médias and reporter Kara Thioune of
bilingual station West Africa Democracy Radio triggered public
outcry in both Senegal and Chicago, particularly
after an audio
recording of the beating was aired in the media. In Chicago, protesters
greeted President Abdoulaye Wade as he arrived for the annual convention of the
U.S.-based National Association of Black Journalists. In Senegal, a national
debate on the state of press freedom erupted. Press leaders formed a
Committee for the Protection and Defense of Journalists (CPDJ), which organized
major street protests (above) and news blackout to press the government for justice.
Authorities eventually appointed a senior judge to lead an investigation.
Then-Interior Minister Cheikh Tidiane Sy announced the transfer of the officers
involved--while, in the same breath, accusing the journalists of provoking the
officers.
A year on, neither Dieng nor Thioune have been given an
opportunity to confront or identify their attackers. Thioune told me he was
questioned twice, once by the investigating magistrate and once by the police. Dieng,
who was hospitalized for 21 days, was questioned on three occasions, one of
which included a re-enactement of the incident, he told me.
The senior magistrate overseeing the case, Mahawa Sémou Diouf, said in an interview
on Monday that he had renewed investigations by
placing them under the authority of the paramilitary police, or gendarmes, according to private
daily Le Quotidien.
But El Hadji Diouf, one of several lawyers defending the two
journalists, told me the case has not moved forward in months. Prior to
involving paramilitary police, the magistrate had tasked the police's Criminal
Investigations Department (notorious for detaining journalists and raiding
newsrooms) to carry out investigations, but the agency did not produce any
results, the lawyer said.
"The government is delaying the process," Diouf said, adding
that authorities have information about which officers were on duty the day of the
assault, June 21, 2008.
Diouf, who doubles as a member of Senegal's National Assembly, is
also representing the daily L'As,
one of two critical newspapers whose offices were ransacked
last year by assailants with links to former Air Transport Minister Farba
Senghor. Senghor, who reacted
to the attacks by declaring, "When one saws the wind, one should expect to
reap the whirlwind," was under investigation after his driver and two bodyguards
were convicted
in the attacks.
But Wade ordered the case brought before a special
parliamentary court, the High Court of Justice. The four lawmakers selected
in January to sit on the court and try Senghor, propaganda chief of the ruling
Senegalese Democratic Party, are fellow party members.
The Assembly has yet to vote on formally charging Senghor,
according to Diouf. Meanwhile, Wade pardoned
those convicted in the raids and set them free in April this year.
"These shelved, unresolved cases create a climate of
impunity and insecurity, and the public is the victim of this injustice, which
spares no one," said Ibrahima Khaliloullah Ndiaye, a journalist with the
state-run national daily Le Soleil.
Ndiaye, who is also the spokesman of the CPDJ, said the committee organized a
panel with various human rights organizations to mark the one-year anniversary
of the stadium incident. Discussions centered on devising strategic
partnerships in defense of human rights in Senegal, he said.
A year ago, in
a letter to President Wade, CPJ expressed concern that thorough,
transparent investigations into abuses against the media have seldom taken
place in his country. The events of the past year, sadly, have shown a
continuation of those practices.
Twitter
Facebook
Email Lists
Donate
Print
Share
Delicious
Digg
Google
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Subscribe
