(RSF/IFEX) – On 29 July 2003, RSF condemned the Interior Ministry’s decision to ban distribution of the latest issue of the newspaper “Le Rénovateur”. The paper’s managing editor, Cheikh Tijane Dia, attributed the ban to an article about the fall of the national currency, the ouguiya, on the black market in the capital, Nouakchott. RSF […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 29 July 2003, RSF condemned the Interior Ministry’s decision to ban distribution of the latest issue of the newspaper “Le Rénovateur”. The paper’s managing editor, Cheikh Tijane Dia, attributed the ban to an article about the fall of the national currency, the ouguiya, on the black market in the capital, Nouakchott.
RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard called the ban “an act of censorship” and noted that over 10 publications have been censored in Mauritania in the past year and a half.
The latest issue, which should have come out on 24 July, was banned under Article 11 of the 1991 press law, which says the Interior Ministry can “forbid the circulation, distribution or sale of newspapers which undermine the state’s credibility”. The ministry does not have to justify its decision and is simply required to give the newspaper and its printing house written “notification”.
On 5 June, the Islamist weekly “Raya” was banned and its offices were closed following an Interior Ministry decision (see IFEX alert of 5 June 2003). “Raya” editor-in-chief Ahmedou Ould Mohamedou and the chairman of the newspaper’s board, Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Mohamed, fled to Belgium after the ban was announced.
