**New case and update to IFEX alerts of 23 December 1999** (RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Speaker of the National Assembly Agbeyome Kodjo, RSF expressed its concern about a new press bill adopted by the Council of Ministers. RSF asked Kodjo to do everything possible to ensure that the existing press law is not […]
**New case and update to IFEX alerts of 23 December 1999**
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Speaker of the National Assembly Agbeyome Kodjo, RSF expressed its concern about a new press bill adopted by the Council of Ministers. RSF asked Kodjo to do everything possible to ensure that the existing press law is not altered. Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general, added that “if this bill is approved by Parliament and becomes law, it would represent a real step backwards for a country which, in reforming its press code in 1998 and abolishing prison sentences for press offences, had shown a degree of openness.”
According to RSF’s information, on 22 December 1999, the government’s Council of Ministers adopted a bill which grants judges the option of “sentencing those charged to prison sentences or suspended sentences” for press offences. The acknowledged purpose of the bill is to allow a judge to deliver “in his soul and conscience, and in accordance with legal dispositions, the most appropriate sanction in each case”.
Furthermore, the organisation recalled that Roland Kpagli Comlan, editor of the private weekly “L’Aurore”, has been jailed since 23 December. He is accused of having falsely asserted that a secondary school pupil had been killed by police officers at a meeting on 7 December.
