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Reporters Without Borders
Press Release
5 December
SENEGAL
Call for measures to defuse tension in runup to
elections, after threats against two journalists
Reporters Without Borders today condemned two
separate cases of threats against Senegalese
journalists in the past two weeks. The targets
were freelance reporter Dié Maty Fall, who works
for the privately-owned newspapers Sud Quotidien,
Le Populaire and L'As and the websites Rewmi.com
and Nettali.net, and Pape Alé Niang, who presents
the press review on privately-owned radio Sud FM.
"Threats against journalists are always
dangerous, regardless of their position, because
journalists are often the first to fall victim to
political hatred," the press freedom organisation
said. "We call on the police to investigate these
cases thoroughly in order to deter those who
attack the media, to defuse tension and to calm
people down in the runup to the elections."
Fall told Reporters Without Borders that her
mother received three anonymous calls on 25
November. The first caller, a woman, asked if
"your daughter is at home." A subsequent caller
said: "Tell your daughter to calm down, to stop
poking her nose everywhere and to mind her own
business (...) otherwise something terrible will
happen to her."
Both Fall and her mother filed complaints
"against persons unknown" at Dakar police
headquarters.
The former head of political coverage at the
state-owned daily Le Soleil, Fall condemned
"threats and insults against independent
journalists." Deploring the seriousness of some
of the insults, especially racial ones, she said:
"I have never been afraid of threats, but it
worries me when they affect my family." She added
that government members had tried to bribe her
several times in the course of her career.
Niang said he was threatened by justice minister
Cheikh Tidiane Sy at a meeting of the ruling
Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) on 22 November
that was attended by the president. He said Sy
had called for him to be "given a hiding" because
of his "disrespectful" press review.
--
Leonard VINCENT
Bureau Afrique / Africa desk
Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders
5, rue Geoffroy-Marie
75009 Paris, France
Tel : (33) 1 44 83 84 84
Fax : (33) 1 45 23 11 51
Email : [log in to unmask] / [log in to unmask]
Web : www.rsf.org
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