On May 7, 2025, police in the northern city of Agadez arrested and questioned Sahara FM journalists Massaouda Jaharou, Hamid Mahmoud, and Mahaman Sani about their reporting that day on an alleged breakdown in cooperation between Niger and Russia, according to a person close to the case who requested anonymity for safety reasons. An investigating judge released them without charge on May 9, but they were re-arrested the next day.
The journalists’ broadcast was based on a May 5 report by the privately owned France-based news outlet LSi Africa.
“They were questioned on who asked them to relay this information,” the person with knowledge of the case said.
On May 14, Agadez gendarmerie transferred the three journalists to the capital, Niamey.
On June 13, a judge at the Niamey military court provisionally released Jaharou on the grounds that she remain in Niamey but directed the transfer of Mahmoud and Sani to Kollo prison in western Niger. The journalists were accused of undermining national defense and conspiring against state authority, but no formal charges had been disclosed as of June 17, 2025.
In August 2025, the military court provisionally released Sani, the person familiar with the case told CPJ. As of October 2025, Mahmoud remained in prison.
Following a coup in 2023, CPJ and other rights groups raised concerns about press freedom in Niger. In April 2024, Idrissa Soumana Maïga, editor of the private newspaper L’Enquêteur, was detained for more than two months for reporting on allegations that Russian agents had placed listening devices in public buildings. Military authorities have also temporarily suspended or banned several international media outlets, including for coverage of the long-running jihadist insurgency in the country.
As of mid-August 2025, CPJ’s calls requesting comment from the police in Agadez and the gendarmerie went unanswered.