(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Interior Minister General Sizing Walla, RSF protested the seizure of nearly 2,000 copies of the newspaper “La Tribune du Peuple”. “Every year in Togo, several thousand copies of private newspapers are seized and confiscated or destroyed by police,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. “In this specific case, we fear […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Interior Minister General Sizing Walla, RSF protested the seizure of nearly 2,000 copies of the newspaper “La Tribune du Peuple”.
“Every year in Togo, several thousand copies of private newspapers are seized and confiscated or destroyed by police,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. “In this specific case, we fear the government is using repeated seizures to nip in the bud a two-month-old newspaper that is close to the opposition.”
RSF has demanded a reform to Press Code provisions that allow the minister of the interior and security “to order the seizure by decree of copies of any publication whose contents constitute a press offence”.
According to information collected by RSF, on 4 April 2002, the interior minister ordered the seizure of copies of “La Tribune du Peuple” for “offensive comments”.
Kodjo Afatsao Siliadin, the newspaper’s editor and author of the article in question, has gone into hiding. The day before, the newspaper criticised the treatment by three agents of the Togo Armed Forces (FAT) of a blacksmith accused of theft.
RSF has also raised fears about death threats repeatedly aimed at Lucien Djossou Messan, news editor of the weekly “Le Combat du Peuple”. In its 2 April edition the newspaper said that, “for some time, real and specific death threats” had been made against the editor. RSF recalls that Lucien Messan had been sentenced on 5 June 2001 to twelve months in prison for “falsehoods and use of falsehoods.” He was freed in a presidential pardon after five months of imprisonment (see IFEX alerts of 30 and 16 October, 12 and 4 July, 8, 7 and 1 June 2001).
