On April 10, 2025, police arrested Zik FM editor-in-chief Simon Pierre Faye over a Facebook post, later deleted, which republished a news article alleging a political crisis in Senegal and a lack of confidence in President Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye.
On April 14, a court in the capital, Dakar, charged Faye with spreading false news and released him under judicial control.
CPJ has documented numerous detentions of Senegalese journalists on false news charges, an offense punishable by one to three years in prison.
In his campaign, President Faye promised to replace imprisonment for press offenses with fines.
Responding in April to a parliamentary question about Faye’s detention, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko said that “penal policy will now be zero tolerance” for spreading “false news.”
CPJ’s email to the government’s information and communications office at the time of Faye’s arrest went answered.