(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has called for the immediate release of detained radio journalist Tchanguiz Vatankhah, the president of the Chad Union of Privately-Owned Radio Stations (URPT), who has been on hunger strike since early May 2006 to demand access to his lawyer, according to a local human rights group. An Iranian political refugee […]
(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has called for the immediate release of detained radio journalist Tchanguiz Vatankhah, the president of the Chad Union of Privately-Owned Radio Stations (URPT), who has been on hunger strike since early May 2006 to demand access to his lawyer, according to a local human rights group.
An Iranian political refugee who has lived in Chad for several decades, Vatankhah is the editor of Radio Brakoss, a community radio station based in the southern town of Moïssala. He was arrested there on 28 April 2006 and then transferred to police headquarters in N’Djamena.
“It is unacceptable to deprive someone of his rights while in detention, regardless of the charges,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Furthermore, his arrest seems more and more absurd and the bad publicity is hurting the government much more than anything he may have said. The public security and immigration minister should heed our call for the release of Vatankhah, who has been reduced to endangering his own life just to demand his most basic rights.”
Deuzombé Daniel Passalet, the president of the Chad-based organisation Human Rights Without Borders (DHSF), told Reporters Without Borders that Vatankhah has resolved not to eat anything until he is allowed to see his lawyer.
“When he is given some water, he drinks just a few drops and splashes himself with the rest,” Passalet said. The head of the Chadian intelligence department reportedly ordered the purchase of medicine to treat Vatankhah’s diabetes, but he also refusing to take the medicine unless his lawyer is present, Passalet added.
Reporters Without Borders has been told he was arrested on the orders of public security and immigration minister Routouang Yoma Golom after issuing a statement on the behalf for the URPT calling for the postponement of the 3 May presidential election.
According to several local sources, Vatankhah promised in a letter to the government late last year that he would refrain from any involvement in Chadian politics, which the authorities view as a violation of his refugee status. He issued this undertaking after being arrested and threatened with expulsion in September, when Golom accused his station of “stirring up resentment between the different rural communities in conflict.”
The human rights minister, Abderaman Djasnabaille, told Reporters Without Borders he was doing everything possible to get Vatankhah freed. While regretting that Vatankhah had broken his promise, he said he was in contact with Golom to “find a solution.”
