**MISA and the Media Foundation of West Africa (MFWA), as a joint activity, will henceforth issue alerts, statements and appeals to highlight media freedom and wider human rights violations in West Africa. See www.misa.org and www.mediafoundationwa.org for more information** (MISA/IFEX) – The following is a joint MISA-MFWA alert: On 27 June 2003, armed soldiers from […]
**MISA and the Media Foundation of West Africa (MFWA), as a joint activity, will henceforth issue alerts, statements and appeals to highlight media freedom and wider human rights violations in West Africa. See www.misa.org and www.mediafoundationwa.org for more information**
(MISA/IFEX) – The following is a joint MISA-MFWA alert:
On 27 June 2003, armed soldiers from the presidential guard assaulted Azoca Bah, a reporter with the Le Lynx la Lance Group, and Aboubakar Akoumba, managing editor of the weekly newspaper “L’Aurore”. Their documents, together with Bah’s camera and film, were also seized and destroyed.
According to MFWA-Guinea, the incident occurred in Touba, a provincial town 400 kilometres northeast of the capital, Conakry, where Bah and Akoumba had gone to cover a Koran-reading session for the health of President Lansana Conté and a demonstration by supporters of his candidature in the next elections. Rally organisers were outraged by the presence of the two reporters, whose newspapers they accused of carrying irreverent reports about the president in previous editions.
Recent speculation and public debate about the president’s health have been fuelled by the campaign for the re-election of President Conté, spearheaded by Elhadj Fodé Soumah, a leader of the ruling Party for Unity and Progress (PUP). Gen. Conté has been Guinea’s head of state since 1984, when he led a military coup following the death of Sékou Touré.
BACKGROUND:
Benn Pepito and Cellou Diallo, editor-in-chief and photographer, respectively, for “La Lance” newspaper, were summoned and questioned for three consecutive days, from 24 to 26 March, about a photograph of President Conté, carried in issue 325 of the newspaper.
On 18 March, officials from the Internal Security Service (DST) physically assaulted and excluded Bah and Diallo from a meeting of journalists called by Gen. Conté at the presidential palace.
