On August 20, 2025, Senegalese authorities arrested and charged Doudou Coulibaly, a news commentator, as well as the program director at Radio Municipale de Dakar, for offending a foreign head of state and a person exercising the prerogatives of the Senegalese head of state.
Coulibaly was taken into custody after responding to an August 19 summons from the police’s Special Division of Cybercrime.
Police initially took Coulibaly into custody on accusations of offense to a foreign head of state and a person exercising the prerogatives of the Senegalese head of state, and insult, one of the journalist’s lawyers, El hadji Moustapha Diouf, told reporters. The prosecutor later dismissed the insult accusation, a second lawyer, Aboubacry Barro, told CPJ.
Coulibaly's prosecution related to comments he made in an August 7 program on the private YouTube channel PublicSn TV during an official visit by Senegalese prime minister Ousmane Sonko to Turkey. During the program, Coulibaly alleged that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had killed an opponent and that a "bandit leader frequents a bandit leader," adding "I'm not talking about anyone."
On August 21, 2025, a prosecutor ordered Coulibaly be transferred to Dakar’s Rebeuss prison pending trial, Barro told reporters.
On August 25, a Dakar court found Coulibaly guilty of offending a foreign head of state, issued a three-month suspended sentence and a fine of 300,000 West African francs (US$533), and released him, Barro told local media.
Coulibaly’s arrest was one of a series of detentions of Senegalese commentators in 2025. In April, Sonko told parliament that news commentators were being used by the opposition.
CPJ’s August 2025 calls to request comment from Sonko’s office and the justice ministry went unanswered.