On April 14, 2025, freelance news commentator Abdou Nguer was arrested and questioned for several hours by gendarmes in the Senegalese capital Dakar, following his comments on the death of Mamdou Badio Camera, a magistrate who helped resolve the country’s 2024 electoral crisis.
In an interview with the local broadcaster Source A TV (which subsequently changed its name to Actusen), Nguer pointed out that two other senior civil servants had also died in recent months.
Two of the TV station’s journalists, Omar Ndiaye and Fatima Coulibaly, were also detained, questioned, and released without charge.
A video clip of Nguer’s comments was posted on a TikTok account called Abdou Nger Seul, which did not belong to the journalist, along with text saying “the people demand an autopsy.” The owner of the account, Pape Amadou Ndiaye Diaw, told the gendarmerie that he was a fan of the journalist but did not know him.
On the evening of April 14, Nguer’s lawyer, El Hadji Diouf, told local reporters that gendarmes had detained the journalist on suspicion of publishing false news, along with the real owner of the TikTok account. Both men were charged on April 17.
Nguer was also in pre-trial detention for two other cases. In May, he was charged with causing offense to the head of state and false news, and separately with defamation of a teacher, his lawyer, Alioune Badara Fall, told CPJ.
On November 12, a Dakar court acquitted Nguer and Diaw of the false news charge but sentenced Nguer to three months in prison for offense to the head of state, time he had already served, and a 200,000 West African francs (US$353) fine.
Nguer was released that day, but is due to appear in court in February 2026 for the defamation case.
CPJ has documented multiple detentions of Senegalese journalists on false news charges, an offense punishable under the penal code by one to three years in prison.
CPJ’s April 2025 email to the government’s information and communications office and calls in July 2025 to the ministry of justice to request comment went unanswered.