(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has denounced the incarceration, on 29 June 2006, of Moustapha Sow, publication director of the privately-owned daily “L’Office”, who was sentenced to a six-month prison sentence with no parole for “defaming” a businessman. “In Senegal, as elsewhere, journalists pay the price for political crises when the press laws are inappropriate. With the […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has denounced the incarceration, on 29 June 2006, of Moustapha Sow, publication director of the privately-owned daily “L’Office”, who was sentenced to a six-month prison sentence with no parole for “defaming” a businessman.
“In Senegal, as elsewhere, journalists pay the price for political crises when the press laws are inappropriate. With the incarceration of Moustapha Sow, we have additional proof that a bad law creates injustice. Throwing a man of the press in prison, on the pretext of alleged defamation, repairs no harm and only serves to satisfy a desire for personal revenge,” said RSF.
Sow was arrested by police on 29 June on the basis of a six-month prison sentence pronounced against him by a Dakar court in February. An arrest warrant was issued, but had no effect until his summons to the police station. The journalist is currently detained at the Reubess detention centre. His lawyers have filed a request for his release to the Dakar Appeals Court.
In Senegal, arrest warrants that are never enforced are frequently issued by the courts. According to Sow’s colleagues, he never expected to be jailed.
The publication director of “L’Office” was prosecuted for “defamation” against Bara Tall, CEO of a construction firm, whose name was cited in a case of over-billing and misappropriation of funds at building sites in Thiès (western Senegal). The prosecutor accused “L’Office” of publishing some 75 articles on the role allegedly played by Tall in this affair, which he characterised as media harassment”. During the trial, the plaintiff’s lawyers demanded 2.25 billion CFA francs (approx. 3.5 million euros).
The Thiès building site case shook Senegalese political life for several months, most notably when the former prime minister and mayor of the city, Idrissa Seck, was imprisoned for “corruption”.
