Niger: Newspaper Director Imprisoned
According to reports, on 19 October Mr Tiogo, publication director of the weekly Le Canard Liber was sentenced by a court in Niamey to six months in jail and ordered to pay fines and damages totalling 5.1 million CFA francs for "defamation". He was immediately imprisoned.
Niger (concern over newpaper
director's imprisonment)
To: IFEX Auto List (other news of interest)
From: World Association of Newspapers (WAN), [email][email protected]
Subject: WAN-WEF protest sent 23.10.01
Date: Tuesday, October 23, 2001
The Right Honourable Ali Sirsi
Justice Minister
Niamey, Niger
c/o Ambassador of Niger at UNESCO
Email: [email][email protected]
23 October 2001
Dear Minister,
We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and World
Editors Forum, which represent more than 17,000 publications in 93
countries, to express our serious concern at the imprisonment of newspaper
director Abdoulaye Tiogo.
According to reports, on 19 October Mr Tiogo, publication
director of the
weekly c was sentenced by a court in Niamey to six
months in
jail and ordered to pay fines and damages totalling 5.1 million CFA francs
for "defamation". He was immediately imprisoned.
The court case stemmed from an article in Le Canard Liber in which
it was
alleged that Minister of Agriculture Wassalk Boukari had embezzled
200
million CFA francs from a gold-mining area in the west of the country. The
story was subsequently picked up by other newspapers.
We respectfully remind you that the criminal law is a wholly inappropriate
means of dealing with the issue of defamation, and that such practice
contravenes a number of international agreements. We believe that a civil
award of reasonable damages is adequate and appropriate relief in all
proven
cases of defamation. Furthermore, the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights considers that "detention, as punishment for the peaceful expression
of an opinion, is one of the most reprehensible ways to enjoin silence and,
as a consequence, a grave violation of human rights".
We respectfully call on you to ensure that Mr Tiogo is
immediately
released from jail and that all criminal charges against him are dropped.
We
urge you to take this opportunity to remove criminal defamation from the
statute books.
We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.
Yours sincerely,
Roger Parkinson
President
World Association of Newspapers
Gloria Brown Anderson
President
World Editors Forum
cc: Mr Kofi Annan, Secretary-General, United Nations
Mrs Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Mr Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General, UNESCO
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