(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the justice minister in charge of the promotion of democracy and the rule of law, General Seyi Mémène, RSF protested the eighteen-month prison sentence given to Lucien Messan, editorial director of the weekly “Le Combat du Peuple”. RSF asked the minister to refer the matter to the competent authorities […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the justice minister in charge of the promotion of democracy and the rule of law, General Seyi Mémène, RSF protested the eighteen-month prison sentence given to Lucien Messan, editorial director of the weekly “Le Combat du Peuple”. RSF asked the minister to refer the matter to the competent authorities in order to acquit the journalist on appeal. “With this sentence, the Togolese courts are silencing an independent journalist and thus threatening all members of the private press in the country,” stated Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general. “Once more, the Togolese authorities want to muzzle the independent press by jailing one of its most known and respected representatives,” added the secretary-general. Finally, RSF notes that thirty-four local journalists have been arrested in the last ten years. Nearly ten of them have been sentenced to several months in jail.
According to information gathered by RSF, Messan was sentenced on 5 June 2001 to eighteen months in jail, six months of which is suspended, for “falsehood and the use of falsehood” by the Fourth Criminal Chamber of the Lomé Court of First Instance. When the court announced the sentence, the defence lawyers said they were “disappointed and frustrated.” They will appeal the ruling in the next few days.
On 23 May, Messan presented himself to the police in response to a summons. He was informed that a complaint had been lodged against him for “falsehood and the use of falsehood” by the Interior Minister, and the journalist was immediately transferred to Lomé civil prison. He was charged with having affixed his signature at the bottom of a communiqué from the Togolese Private Press Publishers Association (Association togolaise des éditeurs de la presse privée – ATEPP). In fact, the publication director of “Le Combat du Peuple” is his son, Messan S. Junior. It is the latter who is authorised to sign the ATEPP’s documents. The communiqué denounced statements by the Togolese prime minister, according to whom “publication directors were unanimous in affirming that there have never been hundreds of deaths in Togo.” The ATEPP accused the government of “seeking to use the private press.”
In August 2000, Lucien Messan lodged a complaint against the Interior Minister for “abuse of power,” following repeated seizures of copies of “Le Combat du Peuple” by the police (see IFEX alerts of 1 August and 19 July 2000).
Messan, 55, is the most senior figure in the Togolese private press. He is known to be one of the most severe critics of Gnassingbé Eyadéma’s regime. He was detained in September 1998 and accused of “spreading false news.”
For further information, contact Jean-François Julliard at RSF, rue Geoffroy Marie, Paris 75009, France, tel: +33 1 44 83 84 84, fax: +33 1 45 23 11 51, e-mail: afrique@rsf.fr, Internet: http://www.rsf.fr
