(RSF/IFEX) – On 6 January 2003, RSF protested the arrest of two Malian journalists who filmed the deportation of a group of Malian illegal immigrants on an airplane at a Paris airport. The two journalists, Youssouf Touré, a reporter for the Malian state television company ORTM, and cameraman Boubakar Diallo were “simply doing their job […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 6 January 2003, RSF protested the arrest of two Malian journalists who filmed the deportation of a group of Malian illegal immigrants on an airplane at a Paris airport.
The two journalists, Youssouf Touré, a reporter for the Malian state television company ORTM, and cameraman Boubakar Diallo were “simply doing their job by trying to inform the public about the unacceptable practices of the French police,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard in a letter to Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
“We call on you to amend the law banning filming or photographing in restricted areas, to prevent it from being used as an excuse to reduce the freedom to inform the public,” Ménard added.
The Malian journalists were in a plane that was about to leave for Bamako, the Malian capital, from Charles de Gaulle airport when fighting broke out between police and the individuals who were being deported. They filmed police officers beating one handcuffed immigrant at the back of the aircraft.
The police made the journalists get off the plane, seized the cameraman’s film and accused them of “filming in a plane and obstructing the movement of aircraft”. They were held for two and a half hours and then freed after the intervention of the Malian embassy in Paris. The confiscated film was not returned.
