**For background information on previous harassment of Paulin Yaméogo, see IFEX alert of 16 September 1999** (RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the minister of territorial administration and security, Yéro Boly, RSF requested the immediate release of Paulin Yaméogo, director of the weekly newspaper “San Finna”, which is close to the opposition. The organisation recalled […]
**For background information on previous harassment of Paulin Yaméogo, see IFEX alert of 16 September 1999**
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the minister of territorial administration and security, Yéro Boly, RSF requested the immediate release of Paulin Yaméogo, director of the weekly newspaper “San Finna”, which is close to the opposition. The organisation recalled that the journalist did nothing more than exercise his journalistic duties. Robert Ménard, RSF’s secretary-general, added that: “Les than two weeks before the first anniversary of the death of Norbert Zongo, the director of ‘L’Indépendant’, this measure hardly helps move towards an appeasement of the situation.”
According to RSF’s information, on 1 December 1999, Yaméogo was arrested and taken to National Security headquarters in Ouagadougou. He is accused of publishing a photograph of Ilboudo Hamidou, who bears the marks of torture he suffered at the hands of presidential guard soldiers during his arrest in December 1997. Hamidou had been detained at the same time as David Ouedraogo, President Blaise Compaoré’s brother’s chauffeur, who was tortured to death in the presidential offices in January 1998. The photograph, sold in the streets of the capital, was published in “San Finna” with the agreement of the victim.
That same day, Boureima Sigué, director of the private daily “Le Pays”, was arrested and released some hours later. He was accused of publishing a text from a group of opposition political parties and associations, which called for “police and security services to guarantee the security of all protesters and refrain from using the terrorist methods of the minority who cling to power”. Four leaders of this group were interrogated by police for three hours.
RSF also recalled that Burkina Faso is one of the last countries in West Africa which has not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
