Niger: Six journalists charged with cybercrime, the press on alert
New wave of arrests among media professionals in Niger. Six journalists were detained on Monday on charges described as cybercrime, according to judicial sources.
Among them are Ibro Chaibou, editorial secretary at Radio-Télévision Saraounia, Youssouf Seriba, publication director of the newspaper Les Échos du Niger, and Oumarou Kané, founder of the periodical Le Hérisson. All three have been remanded into custody at Kollo prison.
The three other journalists involved, including Moussa Kaka, director of RTS and a former RFI correspondent before the station’s suspension in Niger, were granted provisional release.
In response to these arrests, reactions have multiplied. Josué Blaise Mbanga Kack, vice-president of the Union des journalistes de la presse libre africaine (UJPLA), made an urgent appeal to the authorities.
“We demand the unconditional release of all these journalists. The reasons given do not justify such a deprivation of liberty. This harms the press, the country’s image and social cohesion,” he said, quoted by RFI.
He urges the military regime to consider journalists not as opponents, but as watchdogs of society.
For its part, Reporters sans frontières (RSF) expresses its “deep concern” about what it describes as a worrying shrinking of Niger’s media landscape.
The organization denounces accusations of complicity in disseminating a document likely to disturb public order, which it considers unfounded.
“How could the publication of a simple invitation to cover a public event disturb public order?” asks RSF.
RSF says these “arbitrary” prosecutions are part of a strategy to muzzle the press and are leading to increased self-censorship among journalists. The organization calls for the immediate release of the detained professionals and the outright dropping of the charges against them.
Another case that puts freedom of information under severe strain in a Niger undergoing political transition.
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