(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the president of the Republic, General Robert Guéï, RSF protested the attack against Joachim Beugré, a journalist with the Ivoirian daily “Le Jour”. Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general, deplored this attack and made it clear that it was a “serious blow to press freedom.” Expressing its concern over the […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to the president of the Republic, General Robert Guéï, RSF protested the attack against Joachim Beugré, a journalist with the Ivoirian daily “Le Jour”. Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general, deplored this attack and made it clear that it was a “serious blow to press freedom.” Expressing its concern over the deteriorating situation in Côte d’Ivoire in the run-up to the presidential election, RSF asked the president to do everything possible so that the military stops attacking journalists. “The men who attacked this journalist were within the grounds of the presidential residence and therefore placed under the direct authority of the head of state,” added Robert Ménard.
According to information obtained by RSF, on 8 September 2000 Diégou Bailly, publication director for the private daily “Le Jour”, and Beugré, with the same newspaper, were summoned to the presidential residence following the publication of an article entitled “Civil status of General Robert Guéï: Some questions”. “Le Jour” called into question General Guéï’s parentage, based on a civil status document in which the head of state has a different name from his father.
As soon as the meeting between the general and the journalists ended, soldiers ordered the two men to get into a car. According to Bailly, the soldiers ordered him to “get out at the gate to leave them alone with Joachim Beugré.” They then forced Beugré to tell them his address, in order to go there. During the journey, the journalist was hit, on the grounds that he had “insulted the head of state” by writing such an article. After searching and inspecting the journalist’s house, they parked a few kilometres from the airport where a soldier told him: “The president has spoken to you, and we, we are going to take on our responsibilities.” The journalist was again beaten with blows from fists, feet and even night sticks by the three soldiers, who ordered him to reveal his sources. They then abandonned the journalist near a wasteland, after forbidding him from circulating any information about his attack. Beugré has been hospitalised in Abidjan since 8 September.
The day after the attack, after having taken up the article from “Le Jour”, the publication director and the editor-in-chief of the daily “Le Patriote” were, in turn, summoned to the presidential residence. They were heard by the warrant officer Désiré Dacoury who accused them of “wanting to set fire to Côte d’Ivoire along with the RDR (party of Alassane Ouattara)”. The warrant officer Dacoury specified that they could be summoned again in the days to come.
