(MISA/IFEX) – The following is a joint MISA-MFWA alert: On 23 September 2003, the Interior, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry seized issue 80 of the Arabic-language newspaper “Essahifa”. Ministry officials claimed the action was in keeping with Article 11 of the 1991 Law on Press Freedom in Mauritania, Act 91-023, which allows for seizure “by order […]
(MISA/IFEX) – The following is a joint MISA-MFWA alert:
On 23 September 2003, the Interior, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry seized issue 80 of the Arabic-language newspaper “Essahifa”.
Ministry officials claimed the action was in keeping with Article 11 of the 1991 Law on Press Freedom in Mauritania, Act 91-023, which allows for seizure “by order of the Interior Ministry” of publications that may be considered “likely to undermine the principles of Islam or the image of the state, to harm the public good, to compromise public order and security.”
According to Yahya Ould Hamoud, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, the ministry provided no further explanation for seizure of the publication. Hamoud told MFWA, however, that the publication had carried three different stories that might conceivably have provided the pretext for the ministry’s clamp-down. One of the stories dealt with a Mauritanian opposition politician in exile; another was about the soldiers suspected of being responsible for the 8 June attempted coup against the Taya government; and the third was about an Islamic activist arrested in May and freed at the end of August.
The frequent application of the 1991 anti-media and anti-freedom of expression law by the Interior Ministry is an ever-present threat to the growth of media plurality and the expression of alternative views in Mauritania.
