(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the deputy secretary-general of the Parti démocratique sénégalais (PDS, ruling party), Idrissa Seck, RSF expressed concern about an attack on a journalist by party activists. RSF asked the deputy secretary-general to condemn the assault and call on party members and sympathisers to remain calm. “It is your duty to […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the deputy secretary-general of the Parti démocratique sénégalais (PDS, ruling party), Idrissa Seck, RSF expressed concern about an attack on a journalist by party activists. RSF asked the deputy secretary-general to condemn the assault and call on party members and sympathisers to remain calm. “It is your duty to assure the safety of journalists covering PDS activities in the run-up to the 29 April legislative elections,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert Menard.
According to information obtained by RSF, on 16 April 2001, Moussa Diop, correspondent in the southern Senegalese town of Velingara for the private daily “Sud Quotidien”, was going to interview a local official when about a dozen PDS activists reportedly linked to the town mayor, Bèye Baldé, blocked his path and began stoning him. The journalist had to take refuge in his car. All his windows were broken. Diop told RSF that there was in-fighting within the local PDS chapter. On the same day, President Abdoulaye Wade, who was visiting the area, told a local party official that he would pay for repairs to the journalist’s car.
RSF recalled that Cheikh Diemg, the Velingara correspondent for another private newspaper, “Wal Fadjri”, was attacked in March by PDS militants who went to his home to protest his coverage of dissent within the party.
