(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the state minister responsible for communications, Jean-Rémy Pendy Bouyiki, RSF requested the release of journalist Germain Lendoye in Libreville. RSF recalled that Gabon has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees freedom of expression. Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general, added: “Which explains why today, no […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the state minister responsible for communications, Jean-Rémy Pendy Bouyiki, RSF requested the release of journalist Germain Lendoye in Libreville. RSF recalled that Gabon has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees freedom of expression. Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general, added: “Which explains why today, no democratic state passes prison sentences in press-related cases.”
According to information compiled by RSF, on 22 December 1999, Lendoye, a journalist with the private weekly “La Cigale Enchantée”, was arrested by the police. He is accused of publishing an article titled “The irremovable Duke of Mounana” in the 8 to 15 March edition of his newspaper, in which he accused the state minister responsible for equipment and public works, Zacharie Myboto, of having “run off with the property of the district” of Mounana (in the country’s central region). On 14 July, the Libreville magistrates’ court had sentenced Lendoye, as well as Dorothée Ngouoni, the newspaper’s publishing head, to two months in prison and ordered them to pay a fine of 200,000 CFA Francs (approx. US$310) for “defamation”. Fearing reprisals, Ngouoni had fled.
