Journalist in Mali detained for eight days over article

Habi Baby, an editor of the weekly Caravane, was arrested by soldiers at his home in Bamako, the capital, on June 12, 2012, after he published a story critical of Mali’s security forces, according to local journalists and news reports.

In the column, published in the monthly Aujourd’hui la résistance, Baby criticized the conditions of a jail where he had been detained for two weeks by the State Security, Mali’s intelligence agency, on suspicion of being linked with separatist rebels controlling the northeastern self-declared independent territory of Azawad.

Baby was released without charge on June 20, 2012, after spending eight days in detention at the State Security and the Judicial Investigative Brigade, where he was kept for questioning, Agence France-Presse reported.