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Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
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Government vehicle seen in Senegalese newsroom attacks
New York, August 19, 2008--The Committee to Protect Journalists is
alarmed by reports that a government vehicle was used to ransack
the offices of two Senegalese independent newspapers on Sunday. The
attacks came just three days after a top official threatened
unspecified retaliation against the papers over critical stories.
A dozen unidentified men stormed the offices of the daily 24 Heures
Chrono at about 8:30 p.m. Sunday and assaulted driver and
production clerk Ablaye Dièye, the only staffer on the premises,
Managing Editor El Malick Seck told CPJ. The assailants stole
Dièye's mobile phone and smashed about 10 computers before speeding
away in a white Toyota L200 4x4 bearing an official "AD"
(Administration) license plate, he said.
About 15 minutes later and some 400 meters (1,300 feet) away,
assailants riding in a vehicle of the same description stormed the
offices of L'As, attacking staffers with pepper spray, and
destroying two computers, including the paper's file server,
Editor-in-Chief Cheikh Oumar Ndao told CPJ.
At a third newspaper, Le Courrier, Managing Editor Pape Amadou Gaye
told CPJ that he received five anonymous phone calls warning of an
imminent attack. After he saw a white Toyota 4x4 parked some 40
meters (130 feet) from his office around 10 p.m., Gaye said he
summoned police and the vehicle left.
Information Minister Abdoul Aziz Sow did not return CPJ's calls for
comments, but Agence France-Presse quoted an Interior Ministry
spokesman as saying that police had launched an investigation.
"We are disturbed by these reports that a group of thugs in a
government vehicle could systematically ransack the offices of
critical newspapers," said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney.
"Senegal's reputation as a beacon of press freedom in West Africa
has dimmed in recent years. The authorities must begin to reverse
this decline by showing that those responsible for these attacks
will be held to account."
The attacks came just three days after Air Transport Minister
Farba Senghor, who is also the propaganda chief of the ruling
Senegalese Democratic Party, threatened unspecified retaliation
against four private newspapers--L'As, 24 Heures Chrono, Le
Courrier, and the weekly Pic--over critical stories. 24 Heures
Chrono recently published an internal audit report critical of
Senghor's salary as board chairman of a private bus company.
In a press statement published in state-run daily Le Soleil last
Thursday, Senghor accused the newspapersof "orchestrating" a series
of "excessive attacks" against him "with a manifest intent to
harm." The statement added: "There is no difference between verbal,
written and physical violence. Press freedom does not at all give a
journalist the right to continually attack honest citizens with
impunity." He warned that he reserved the right to retaliate in
self-defense.
Senghor, in a statement published today in Le Soleil, denied any
involvement in the Sunday attacks. While criticizing the attacks,
he also suggested the newspapers may have provoked them. "Violence
is no one's perquisite, and when one saws the wind, one should
expect to reap the whirlwind," he wrote.
Senghor, who was never publicly held accountable for threatening to
"beat up" a journalist in 2007, called for a campaign against
critical media in response to a coverage blackout of the party's
activities launched by the independent media. The blackout was part
of a wave of protests to demand justice in the aftermath of a
brutal beating by police in June of two sports journalists after a
soccer match.
For L'As, it was the second incident in recent weeks. Police
blocked distribution of a late July edition and questioned Managing
Editor Mamadou Thierno Tall and reporter Daouda Thiam for
publishing comments by the leader of a judiciary trade union
critical of the justice minister, according to news reports.
Prominent editor Madiambal Diagne, a member of the newly formed
Committee for the Protection and Defense of Journalists, told CPJ
the group has formally asked media houses to hire security to
guarantee their own protection, adding that state was failing to
adequately protect journalists.
Senegal, once considered a haven of press freedom in Africa, has
seen an unprecedented level of hostile government rhetoric, and
total impunity for attacks and threats against independent media
this year.
© 2008 Committee to Protect Journalists. www.cpj.org E-mail:
info@cpj.org
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