Napo-Koura is due to appear in court on March 20 in the Togolese capital, Lomé, over a defamation complaint filed in March 2023 by Charles Kokouvi Gafan, former general manager of Togo Terminal, about a report published in the privately owned Tampa Express in January 2023 about alleged mismanagement at the company, according to the journalist, who spoke with CPJ, and a copy of a letter from his lawyer, Elom Kpade, and a copy of the complaint.
The complaint claimed Tampa Express published “false information” about Gafan that constituted defamation, and that the allegations were repeated by Napo-Koura on a broadcast by the privately owned Taxi FM and circulated on social media. The complaint also requested that the court find Tampa Express and Napo-Koura guilty of defamation under the penal code and order them to pay Gafan 30 million West African francs (about US$50,000), among other remedies.
Togo’s press code says that offenses involving journalists must be handled by the communications regulator, but in certain circumstances still allows for journalists to be prosecuted under the penal code. Article 156 of the press code says that journalists who “used social networks as a means of communication” to commit such offenses are instead “punished in accordance with the common law provisions.”
Napo-Koura could receive a prison sentence of up to six months and a fine of up to 2 million CFA francs (US$ 3,321) under Article 290 of the penal code.
Separately, on March 4, Togo’s media regulator, the High Authority for Audiovisual and Communication (HAAC) suspended the privately owned La Dépêche for three months over its February 28 report that questioned the 2023 conviction of Major General Abalo Kadangha for the murder of Lieutenant-Colonel Bitala Madjoulba in 2020, according to the newspaper’s editor Apollinaire Mewenemesse and a copy of the decision reviewed by CPJ.
“Togolese authorities should reverse their suspension of La Dépêche newspaper and cease harassing the Tampa Express newspaper and its publishing director Francisco Napo-Koura,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program. “The repeated suspension of news outlets in Togo and the threat of journalists being criminally prosecuted for their work has become far too commonplace in the country and violates citizen’s access to information.”
Gafan also complained to the HAAC last year about the same January 2023 Tampa Express article, which prompted the regulator to suspend publication of the newspaper for three months in February 2023, according to Napo-Koura, and a copy of the HAAC’s decision, reviewed by CPJ.
In the case of La Dépêche, the HAAC said the newspaper provided “no evidence to support its allegations and insinuations” about the murder trial and that its report contained incitement to tribal hatred and popular revolt and called for ethnic confrontation between military officers. These allegations were not substantiated by CPJ’s review of the report.
The HAAC also alleged “recidivism” by La Dépêche, saying that it had previously summoned the newspaper in May 2023 and November 2020 over other reports.
Under Article 65 of Togo’s law regulating communications, the HAAC can suspend daily newspapers for up to 15 days and other publishers and broadcasters for up to four months for non-compliance with its recommendations, decisions, and warnings.
Napo-Koura has previously faced legal action over his reporting. In September, he was questioned by judicial police following a complaint by the civil service minister, Gilbert Bawara, over an August 2023 Tampa Express report on allegations of corruption in civil service recruitment, Napo-Koura and Kpade told CPJ, adding that the case was pending with the prosecutor.
CPJ’s calls to Gafan and the HAAC to request comment were not answered.
The HAAC suspended Liberté newspaper in 2022 and L’Alternative and Fraternité newspapers in 2021 and barred L’Indépendant Express from publishing in 2021 over their critical reporting.
]]>“The prosecution of journalist Stanis Bujakera has been outrageous from the start and should have never reached a stage where he may be convicted to two decades in prison, especially since a technical expert has thrown serious doubt on Bujakera’s involvement in the alleged crime,” said Angela Quintal, Head of CPJ’s Africa Program. “The over six months since Bujakera’s arrest have been a chilling reminder that journalists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are under constant threat of arrest. Authorities should act swiftly to reform the country’s laws to protect, not constrain the press.”
Bujakera, a Congolese citizen and a permanent U.S. resident, worked as a correspondent for privately owned Jeune Afrique and Reuters news agency, while also being deputy director of publication for the DRC-based news website Actualite.cd. He was arrested by police in Kinshasa, the DRC’s capital, on September 8, 2023, and authorities charged him with spreading falsehoods, forgery, the use of forged documents, and distributing false documents under the combined application of the DRC’s penal code and a new digital code and press law.
During a hearing on March 8, the public prosecutor in Bujakera’s case requested that the journalist be convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined one million Congolese francs ($361), one of Bujakera’s lawyers, Ndikulu Yana, told CPJ. During that hearing, the report of a technical expert commissioned by the court presented findings that suggested Bujakera was not the principal source of a document that the DRC intelligence service has said is false, according to media reports.
A verdict is expected in the case on March 20, according to Yana and those reports.
]]>Muhiyadin, who publishes reporting and commentary on his Muxiyediin show Facebook page, was arrested by security forces of unknown affiliation from his home in Jigjiga, capital of Ethiopia’s eastern Somali Regional State, according to the Addis Standard independent news website and Abdulrazaq Hassan, chairperson of the Somali Region Journalists Association, a local media rights group.
On March 4, authorities charged Muhiyadin with spreading false news and hate speech, in violation of Ethiopia’s hate speech and disinformation law, according to Abdulrazaq and a copy of the charge sheet reviewed by CPJ. If found guilty, Muhiyadin could face up to five years in prison.
“Officials in Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State should stop wasting public resources on prosecuting a journalist whose only crime was criticizing political elites on Facebook,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo. “Authorities should release Muhiyadin immediately and drop the criminal case against him. Ethiopian authorities must bring an end to the culture of locking journalists up whenever they don’t like what they are saying.”
Abdulrazaq told CPJ that security personnel held Muhiyadin at an undisclosed location for six days, without charge or explanation, before transferring him on February 19 to the Fafan Zone police station in Jigjiga.
When Muhiyadin appeared in court on February 20, police alleged that he had disseminated false propaganda and were given 10 days to hold him in custody while they carried out further investigations, Abdulrazak said.
Charged with inciting the public
Muhiyadin’s charge sheet said that he incited the public in a Facebook post on February 12 to “stand up against the non-believer whom they closed the roads for.” It did not provide details as to who the “non-believer” referred to or any image of the Facebook post.
CPJ’s review of Muhiyadin’s Facebook page on March 5 found one post criticizing road closures in Jigjiga on February 11, the day before Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s visit. The post said that transport fares had been hiked and the government “should care for the poor members” of society. It did not contain the phrases cited in the charge sheet.
Prior to his arrest, Muhiyadin said on Facebook that he had been threatened for his reporting. On February 2, he said that his coverage would not be “silenced by anyone.” On February 3, he said he planned to leave the Somali Regional State after being threatened by the ruling party and the opposition for criticizing them.
After Muhiyadin’s arrest, a user identifying themselves as the Muxiyediin show’s administrator posted on February 23 that they had met Muhiyadin in prison and he had asked them to continue publishing on the page “to speak for the Somali community.”
Muhiyadin was previously arrested and detained for three days in 2023 after he posted a video on Facebook protesting authorities’ suspension of 15 media outlets in the state, including the U.K.-based broadcaster Kalsan TV, which he was working for as a reporter.
According to the CPJ’s latest annual prison census on December 1, 2023, Ethiopia was the second-worst jailer of journalists in sub-Saharan Africa with eight behind bars. Four of these journalists were detained without charge or trial following the August 4 declaration of a six-month state of emergency in response to conflict in Amhara State.
In February, the state of emergency was extended for four months.
Abdikadir Rashid Duale, head of the Somali Regional State’s communication bureau, which acts as a regional government spokesperson and licenses media outlets, told CPJ via messaging app: “We are deeply sorry about the detention of Mr. Muhiyadin, as he is a citizen with the constitutional right[s] and the human right[s] … but that doesn’t mean that a citizen cannot be questioned about what he/she is doing.”
He referred CPJ’s questions about Muhiyadin’s case to regional security agencies but did not specify which ones.
Ali Abdijabar, a deputy commissioner for police in the Somali Regional State, did not immediately respond to CPJ’s requests for comment via messaging app.
Editor’s note: Shortly after the publication of this alert, deputy police commissioner Ali Abdijabar sent CPJ an undated video in which Muhiyadin was speaking, saying he was “angry and sad” about road closures in Jigjiga during a celebration by “nonbelievers” who are “cursed in the Quran.” The deputy police commissioner did not respond to subsequent messages by CPJ requesting clarification on when and where the video was recorded or published. Abdikadir Awess, a newly-appointed lawyer representing Muhiyadin, told CPJ that authorities had introduced this video as evidence in court. Abdikadir said the journalist did not “incite anyone, and the alleged incitement did not materialize.”
]]>The seizures took place largely at MBC offices in Blantyre, Lilongwe, and Mzuzu following a complaint by MBC’s management about the creation of a “fake” Facebook page bearing the corporation’s name and logo, which the outlet had not approved, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), the journalists, and police search warrants reviewed by CPJ. The complaint accused the 14 journalists of “spamming,” which carries a maximum penalty of two million Malawian kwacha (about US$1,190) and imprisonment for five years under section 91 of Malawi’s Electronic Transactions and Cybersecurity Act.
As of March 8, police returned three laptops and nine phones to the journalists, according to a journalist who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. The journalist, whose phone has been returned, is concerned that the device has been compromised while in police custody and will no longer use it.
Another journalist, who also spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, said some MBC colleagues received email notifications about attempts to log into their Instagram and X accounts while their devices were in police custody.
Malawi police spokesperson Peter Kalaya told CPJ in a late February 2024 phone interview that the police investigation was being conducted in response to a legitimate complaint, and police had obtained a warrant before seizing and searching the devices.
“The investigation is not targeting journalists, it is targeting people who we suspect to be responsible” for the Facebook page, Kalaya said, but he declined to explain how the police had determined which individuals were suspects.
“We have a forensics laboratory and sometimes we use other institutions’ forensic laboratories,” Kalaya told CPJ, but declined to give specifics about the technologies used to search the journalists’ devices. “Our search in the gadgets is going to be restricted to those apps that we believe or that we suspect were used in the commission of the crime,” Kalaya told CPJ, adding that the journalists whose devices had been seized should trust the professionalism of the investigating officers. “Why should a police officer go to contacts, to [the] photo gallery when what he is looking for is not there, or if he does not suspect it will be there?” he said.
In January 2024, the local Platform for Investigative Journalism (PIJ-Malawi) reported that Malawian authorities had obtained the Universal Forensic Extraction Device (UFED), a powerful technology designed to access and extract information from electronic devices and sold by the Israel-based company Cellebrite. The Malawi police sought to further expand its investigative capacity with similar tools, according to the report. In response to CPJ’s questions about which tools, including those sold by Cellebrite, police used to search the devices of MBC journalists, Kalaya declined to give specifics.
CPJ has previously documented the use of Cellebrite’s UFED by police in Botswana to search journalists’ phones and has raised the issue of privacy concerns when law enforcement seizes devices and has access to such technology.
MBC director general George Kasakula declined to comment until the police investigation into the alleged spamming concludes at an unknown date.
On February 15, five police officers looking for Greyson Chapita, MBC’s suspended controller of news and programs, arrived at his daughter’s home. The officers told family members there to call Chapita and tell him that his daughter was sick to lure him there, the journalist told CPJ, adding that his family obliged, and he arrived shortly after. Once Chapita arrived, police officers told him that he was a suspect in a murder and requested to search his phone and laptop, but he initially refused.
Chapita told the officers that he would not comply until he verified that they were police officers, and he went with them to the local police station to confirm their identities. Once confirmed by a senior officer, Chapita returned with them to his home, where the officers showed him the same warrant citing MBC management’s complaint, and he opened his laptop and entered his password, he told CPJ. The officers then looked through his Facebook account for 30 minutes without further explanation as Chapita watched.
“[T]hey checked my Facebook account and took screenshots. They made me sign a document showing that they searched my laptop and did not find anything, so they didn’t take it. They couldn’t see my phone because it is not a smartphone,” the journalist added.
When asked about the police officers’ tactics used to summon Chapita and search his computer, Kalaya told CPJ that he could not comment on the specifics of the incident, but he said the journalist could file a complaint.
“What I can assure you is that our investigators are very professional and whatever they are doing is very professional,” Kalaya said.
Editor’s note: The photo caption in this case was corrected to reflect another location and time.
]]>The existence of a surveillance operation that allegedly spied on Zogo since at least 2015 was disclosed in a 20-page referral to trial document reviewed by CPJ. The document was part of a judicial investigation into the January 2023 kidnapping, torture, and murder of the popular radio host, which was finalized on February 29, 2024.
Seventeen suspects are expected to stand trial, on a date yet to be set, in a military court in the capital, Yaoundé, on charges including murder, complicity and conspiracy to murder, complicity and conspiracy to torture, complicity to kidnap, and violation of instructions, according to the document and news reports.
The suspects include:
“The revelation that a surveillance operation targeted popular radio host Martinez Zogo since at least 2015 raises concerns about which other journalists have been surveilled by Cameroon’s counterintelligence agency,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program in New York. “Cameroonian authorities must make a full disclosure and ensure the end to all surveillance, physical or electronically, of journalists. The unfettered practice is not only a violation of journalists’ right to privacy but has serious consequences for source protection.”
Zogo was found dead on January 22, 2023, after going missing five days earlier. A week before his abduction, Zogo publicly accused Belinga of widespread corruption involving funds from the Cameroonian treasury during his radio show Embouteillage (Gridlock).
The court document reviewed by CPJ was prepared by lead investigating judge, Lieutenant-Colonel Pierrot Narcisse Nzié, the third investigating judge in the case who was appointed in December after the previous judge ordered the controversial release of Belinga and Eko Eko. The pair remained in detention after authorities claimed that the release order was fake.
The document describes how DGRE agents led by Danwe, under the influence of Belinga, allegedly carried out the kidnapping and torture of Zogo in Ebogo, a district of the capital Yaoundé, on January 17, 2023. Part of this team returned to the scene an hour later for a second operation that “resulted in Zogo’s death” by “strangulation and torture.”
The court document said Eko Eko denied involvement, saying Zogo was never a threat to him and the operation against the journalist was Danwe’s personal initiative; however, Nzié said Eko Eko could not claim this, as he had ordered the DGRE to surveil the journalist since 2015 as part of the “Presse” dossier. The court documents did not elaborate further but said the surveillance operation ordered by Eko Eko was confirmed by another witness, Emmanuella Moudie, the chief of the DRGE’s electronic surveillance division.
Zogo’s surveillance was also corroborated by Yves Saïwang, another suspect facing trial and an officer in the DGRE’s electronic surveillance division, who “bluntly” declared during questioning that Zogo was the target of the DGRE’s surveillance, according to the court document. Saïwang also said that since 2017, he was responsible for monitoring Zoga. Eko Eko had never taken any measures to prevent this and could not escape responsibility, Nzié said in the court document.
Saïwang also said he sent Danwe geolocation information about Zogo via WhatsApp and then received 20,000 francs (US $33), according to the document. Heudji Guy Serge, another DGRE officer who is also a suspect in the trial, said he, too, provided technical information to Danwe about Zogo and received 15,000 francs (US $25).
Denis Omgba Bomba, director of the media observatory at Cameroon’s Ministry of Communication, told CPJ that there was no surveillance “program” dedicated to journalists but that as Zogo was a public figure, the surveillance was a normal intelligence operation. Bomba added that the protection of journalists’ sources is not absolute and that the state can ignore this for security reasons.
Authorities charged Bidjang with conspiracy to torture, conspiracy to arrest, and kidnapping in relation to Zogo’s murder, according to the court document. He is detained in Yaoundé’s Principal Prison on separate charges of revolt, incitement to insurrection, rebellion, and spreading false news, his lawyer, Charles Tchoungang, told CPJ.
]]>In a public address on February 17 in the provincial capital of Pemba, Cabo Delgado governor Valige Tauabo accused unnamed journalists and media outlets of striking “deals” with terrorists and being “in sync with terrorists,” according to news reports.
Tauabo said that coverage of the region had an “imprint of evil” because journalists’ views had been “formatted by terrorists” and he warned the media “not to create a situation,” those sources said.
In a February 16 radio interview, Sidónio José, administrator of Quissanga district in Cabo Delgado, accused unnamed journalists of “fabricating false news about terrorism to traumatize communities,” according to the privately owned Integrity Magazine and the Mozambican chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa rights group.
The government has been fighting an Islamic State-linked insurgency in Cabo Delgado since 2017, which has displaced about 1 million people. In 2021, Rwanda and southern African neighbors sent troops to support the government. Since December, a new wave of attacks has forced about 70,000 people to flee their homes, United Nations data shows.
“It is alarming that officials in Cabo Delgado are issuing threats against the media and making inflammatory comments about journalists who already face high levels of risk covering the insurgency in Cabo Delgado,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo from Nairobi. “Cabo Delgado governor Valige Tauabo and Quissanga district administrator Sidónio José must withdraw their comments accusing journalists of colluding with terrorists and fabricating the news. Instead of intimidating the press, authorities should support the journalism that Mozambicans need to make crucial decisions about their lives.”
A local journalist who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, said authorities rarely provided timely responses to journalistic queries about the conflict, creating a “vacuum of official information that feeds disinformation about the security situation.”
Another journalist, who also asked not to be named due to safety concerns, told CPJ that the “narrative of blaming journalists for the difficulties of combating the insurgency” had been a problem for the media for several years.
In 2020, radio journalist Ibraimo Mbaruco disappeared after he texted a colleague that he was “surrounded by soldiers.” Authorities have yet to provide a credible account of his whereabouts.
Radio journalist Amade Abubacar and Arlindo Chissale, editor of Pinnacle News, which specializes in reporting on the insurgency, were arrested and accused of terrorism, in 2019 and 2022 respectively, while reporting in Cabo Delgado.
CPJ’s calls to Tauabo requesting comment on his public address did not receive a response.
When contacted via messaging app, José declined to comment, adding that “only the defense institutions can speak about the delicate situation in the region.”
]]>Police officers detained, slapped, bodily assaulted, and hit Aniagolu with a gun. A reporter with the privately owned newspaper The Whistler, she was reporting on a police raid of a currency trading area in Wuse, a business hub in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, on February 21, 2024, according to reports by privately owned news website Sahara Reporters and her outlet, and the journalist, who spoke to CPJ.
“Nigerian authorities must hold accountable the police officers who detained, attacked, and harassed journalist Kasarahchi Aniagolu after she tried to report on a police raid in Abuja,” said CPJ Africa Program Head Angela Quintal from New York. “The officers’ behavior was doubly reprehensible as they are responsible for the safety of Nigerian citizens, including journalists.”
Aniagolu was on a separate reporting assignment when she encountered the police raid and approached a male officer, showing her press identification, to request a formal interview, the journalist and Nnaemeka Wondrous, head of the law and judiciary desk at The Whistler, told CPJ by phone. The officer declined, and another nearby officer told Aniagolu to stop filming until the police were done, which she did.
After about ten minutes, the officers began to leave, and Aniagolu again began to film and photograph the scene. A female officer noticed and approached Aniagolu, angrily asked who had given her permission to cover the incident, and slapped Aniagolu’s face; another officer hit her on the hand with their gun, and then the female officer dragged the journalist into a police van, according to those sources.
On their way to the station, a male officer questioned Aniagolu’s sex, reportedly saying, “Are you sure this is a girl? The way she is holding tightly to her phone seems like it’s a man,” Aniagolu told CPJ. A female officer sitting close to Aniagolu then used her hand to press on the journalist’s chest to confirm her sex and told the male officer that Aniagolu was female.
The male officer then pointed his gun at the journalist and threatened to shoot her if she did not give him her phone, boasting that he would “get away with murder” if he killed her, Aniagolu told CPJ, adding that she complied and gave her phone to the officers.
After arriving at the station, two officers pushed the journalist onto her knees, held her hands, and used her face authentication to unlock her phone and delete pictures and videos of the raid, the journalist said. Officers then made her sit on the floor with around 60 men who were arrested during the raid.
Aniagolu said she was detained for eight hours, during which police officers searched her bag, accused her of visiting the currency trading site to illegally exchange U.S. dollars, questioned her about her outlet, and instructed her to write a statement about her arrest.
She told CPJ that she was released with all her belongings. When an officer handed her a phone before she left, someone on the other end apologized for her arrest and said she was free to leave.
Aniagolu told CPJ the incident was “traumatic,” and she continues to worry about the safety of herself and her family.
CPJ’s call and text messages to the Abuja police spokesperson, Josephine Adeh, for comment received no replies.
]]>Officials from the Zimbabwe Gender Commission, a statutory body concerned with gender equality, invited a group of local journalists to cover a briefing on plans to open a regional office in Gweru, a town in the Midlands Province about 223 kilometers (138 miles) south of the capital Harare, on February 27. Before the meeting could begin, Owen Ncube, the Minister of State for Midlands Provincial Affairs and Devolution, asked all the journalists to introduce themselves, saying some were not fit to cover government events, according to news reports and the two journalists who spoke to CPJ.
After Mubaiwa, a reporter with the privately owned Mirror Midlands Newspaper, and Chadenga, a reporter with the privately owned newspaper Newsday, introduced themselves, Ncube told them they were “not welcome,” accused their outlets of attacking the government, and banned them from future government meetings in the Midlands Province. Ncube then ordered his security officers to escort the journalists out of the room.
“Barring journalists from covering government events points to a troubling unwillingness by Minister of State for Midlands Provincial Affairs and Devolution Owen Ncube to be scrutinized by the press in a manner that all public officials should expect,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo in Nairobi. “Ncube should withdraw his order barring journalists Sydney Mubaiwa and Stephen Chadenga from covering state events, and Zimbabwean authorities must ensure journalists have access to report on the government.”
Six journalists from the privately owned newspapers Midweek Watch and The Sun, the state-owned newspapers Chronicle and Gweru Times, and state-owned radio station YaFM were allowed to stay and cover the meeting, Mubaiwa and Chadenga said.
Zimbabwe Gender Commission Chairperson Margaret Mukahanana Sangarwe and an official from the communications department apologized to the two journalists as they were escorted out of the meeting room. Reached by messaging app, Sangarwe told CPJ she had no comment.
Mubaiwa and Chadenga told CPJ that they had been too afraid to attend government events in Midlands Province since February 27.
The Zimbabwe Union of Journalists “unequivocally condemns” the minister’s actions, the secretary-general of the union, Mswathi Hlongwane, told CPJ, adding that the union “will not accept any attempts aimed at dividing the media along private or public media lines.”
CPJ’s repeated calls and app messages to Ncube, Virginia Muwanigwa, CEO of the Zimbabwe Gender Commission, and Jenfan Muswere, Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, for comment did not immediately receive replies.
]]>You can download these safety cards as images or PDFs in English and français.
As Senegalese security forces sought to quell protests in February after the postponement of the presidential election, CPJ documented how at least 25 journalists reporting in the capital, Dakar, were physically attacked, briefly detained, targeted with tear gas, or harassed by police.
In response, CPJ has assembled recommendations for journalists working in Senegal, including how to prepare for and respond to tear gas, internet shutdowns, and arrest or detention.
Find CPJ’s protest resources here.
If you would like to speak with someone about threats you are facing or concerned about, please email emergencies@cpj.org. If you are a journalist looking for safety information, you can also message CPJ’s automated chatbot on WhatsApp at +1 206 590 6191.
]]>She’s not alone: Niang is one of at least five journalists jailed since last year in Senegal in connection with their work. It’s the highest number ever recorded in the country since CPJ began keeping track in 1992 with its annual December 1 prison census.
“The government has tried to silence all discordant voices,” Babacar Touré, director of the Kéwoulo news site, where Niang worked, told CPJ in a January interview. “Maty’s place is with us, in our editorial office to prepare for this election.”
Though the journalists were arrested months before the current unrest, their detentions are indicative of a broader crackdown on press freedom and dissent which has called into question Senegal’s reputation as a stable democracy. Authorities have repeatedly jailed opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, most recently in July when they also dissolved his political party, and responded violently to protests. Journalists have faced arrest over coverage of Sonko’s prosecution, and other efforts to curb political reporting.
In early February, after President Macky Sall decided to postpone elections originally scheduled for later in the month, attacks on the media spiked. Senegalese police have targeted dozens of journalists with tear gas, violence, and harassment as they covered demonstrations against the election delay. The government has also repeatedly blocked mobile internet access.
A press code used against the press
Niang and the four other journalists in Senegal’s prisons — Allô Sénégal news presenter Ndèye Astou Bâ, the outlet’s columnist Papa El Hadji Omar Yally, its camera operator Daouda Sow, and its manager Maniane Sène Lô — face a raft of charges. Notably, each is accused of “usurping the function of a journalist.”
The charge stems from the combined application of Senegal’s press and penal codes. Adopted in 2017, the press code, which regulates the media sector, was promoted by officials as a way to professionalize the local press and strengthen democracy. But, as press freedom advocates warned at the time, it imposed limitations on who could be considered a journalist. “Only holders of a national card can claim the status of journalist,” reads Article 22 of the press code. Article 227 of Senegal’s criminal code punishes people who claim to work in a “legally regulated profession” – such as journalism – without “fulfilling the required conditions” with up to two years in prison and a fine.
“Holding the card is not about the professional identity of journalists, it’s simply a document that allows journalists to be distinguished from those who are not journalists when they go to a ceremony,” Serigne Saliou Gueye, publication director of the Yoor Yoor newspaper who has been working as a journalist for over 20 years, told CPJ. “I’m all for professionalizing journalists,” he added, but the issue of impersonating journalists is a “false problem.”
Gueye was jailed in May 2023 over a column Yoor Yoor published under an anonymous byline that criticized the prosecution of opposition leader Sonko. He was held for nearly a month and accused of usurping the function of a journalist and of contempt of court, before being released in June under judicial control, a conditional freedom set by the judge.
‘Paranoia in our ranks’
At least four other journalists – Pape Sane, Pape Alé Niang, Pape Ndiaye, and Touré – have been arrested in connection with their work over the past year and then released under strict conditions, including not speaking publicly about their cases, their lawyers told CPJ. The journalists face various accusations under the penal code, including false news and conduct likely to undermine public security. Those who spoke to CPJ did so about the general media environment in Senegal, not the specifics of their prosecutions.
“It’s all about muzzling the press…and putting pressure on those who resist,” Pape Alé Niang, editor of the news site Dakarmatin, told CPJ. His arrest in 2022 put Senegal on CPJ’s prison census that year for the first time since 2008. He was released and rearrested that December for discussing his prosecution in a Facebook live broadcast, released in January 2023, and then detained again for 10 days in July and August over a broadcast about Sonko’s arrest.
In separate cases last year, Senegalese police also arrested two Senego news website reporters—Abdou Khadre Sakho in August and Khalil Kamara in September—and accused them each of spreading false news in publications about Sonko. Kamara was additionally accused of defamation, contempt of court, and insulting the head of state. Both were released without charge within 24 hours.
“These arrests and imprisonments of journalists have created a paranoia in our ranks,” Ibrahima Lissa Faye, president of the Association of Online Press Professionals, known by the French acronym APPEL, told CPJ. “At any moment you could be prosecuted for disseminating false news without there being any false news, or for undermining state security: catch-all offenses that amount to absolutely nothing, but are used to muzzle journalists.”
CPJ reached Senegal’s Minister of Communication, Telecommunications, and Digital Economy, Moussa Bocar Thiam, over the phone and he asked to be sent a message, but did not subsequently respond to CPJ’s questions about the arrests. Calls to government spokesperson Abdou Karim Fofana, as well as calls and messages sent to Justice Minister Aïssata Tall Sall, went unanswered.
An ongoing ‘spiral’ of fear
Senegal’s constitutional court ruled in mid-February that a new election must take place as soon as possible, and a national dialogue panel has proposed June 2 as a new date. Sall has reaffirmed his earlier commitment not to run again and said he would exit office on April 2, when his term ends. Journalists have continued working amid ongoing unrest, but the prospect of arrest looms alongside threats of violence and censorship.
“There’s this constant anxiety that journalists feel on a daily basis,” Moustapha Diop, director of the Walf TV broadcaster, told CPJ. Walf TV was taken off air for a week in early February; last June it was suspended for a month over protest coverage. “We have the impression that whenever there is tension, the authorities have a simple reflex: Wal Fadjri [the parent group of WalfTV] must stop broadcasting,” Diop said.
Internet shutdowns since the election delay have also impeded journalism in what is now a familiar pattern for the local press. In 2023, internet and social media were shut down and social media was blocked in 2021. The 2023 shutdowns prompted civil society groups to file a lawsuit in January against the Senegalese government at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice. The plaintiffs, including Moussa Ngom, an author of this piece, claimed that the 2023 shutdowns violated their freedom of expression and right to work.
“Senegalese journalists have been working in fear. Especially those in groups labeled ‘against the power,’” Ayoba Faye, another local journalist and plaintiff in the internet shutdowns lawsuit, told CPJ. “Above all, the new president must stop this spiral.”
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