CHAD

JUNE 4, 2005
Posted: June 7, 2005

Ngaradoumbé Samory, L’Observateur

IMPRISONED

Chad’s National Security Agency (ANS) arrested Samory, editor of the private weekly L’Observateur, which is based in the capital, N’Djamena. The following day he was transferred to the custody of the judicial police, before being released without charge on June 6 following protests from civil society and journalists’ organizations.

According to local sources and media reports, ANS agents pressured Samory to disclose the name of the author of an open letter to President Idriss Déby that was published in L’Observateur under a pseudonym. The letter was written on behalf of detained members of a minority ethnic community known as the Kreda, who live in Chad’s northwestern Kanem region. The government has accused the Kreda of plotting a rebellion, according to a CPJ source.