NEWS
Government shutters Senegalese-owned radio station
Source: CPJ



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October 25, 2005
New York, October 24, 2005-Police shut down the Gambian branch of
Senegalese private radio station Sud FM on Saturday, according to
international news reports and local sources. In an interview on Sunday
with the BBC, acting Gambian Information Minister Neneh Mcdoll-Gaye
accused Sud FM of "inciting trouble" between Gambia and Senegal, but gave
no further details.

Pape Djomaye Thiare, Sud FM's Banjul director, said the station had not
been told the reason for the government's action. The closure followed a
closed-door summit on Friday between President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal
and President Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia to resolve tension that has
simmered since Gambia hiked prices for ferries across the Gambia River,
which forms the border between the two countries. Tension apparently eased
when the Gambia agreed to suspend higher crossing fares on the Gambia
River and Senegal said it would ask its transport unions to end a border
blockade.

Sud FM director Oumar Diouf Fall told CPJ that the Gambian authorities may
have been angered by the station's review of Senegalese press coverage
following the summit. CPJ sources say some Senegalese newspapers suggested
that Jammeh had capitulated to Wade on the border issue.

The closure also follows the Senegalese government's one-day suspension of
Sud FM on October 17 for airing an interview with a rebel leader. Dozens
of its staff were briefly detained and could face legal action. See CPJ's
October 17 alert: http://www.cpj.org/news/2005/Senegal17oct05na.html.

"The Committee to Protect Journalists is outraged at the closure of Sud FM
in Banjul, without warning and without explanation," CPJ Executive
Director Ann Cooper said. "This is a further example of the contempt with
which President Jammeh's government appears to regard freedom of the press
in the Gambia."

Journalists in the Gambia face repressive legislation as well as frequent
harassment and threats. Domestic news broadcasting is a virtual state
monopoly. A series of arson attacks on private media outlets and the
assassination of a journalist last December have so far gone unpunished.

CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to
safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit
www.cpj.org.



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