Committee to Protect Journalists
HONORARY CO-CHAIRMAN Walter Cronkite, CBS NEWS; HONORARY CO-CHAIRMAN Terry Anderson; CHAIRMAN Paul E. Steiger, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL; EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Joel Simon. DIRECTORS: Andrew Alexander, COX NEWSPAPERS; Franz Allina; Christiane Amanpour, CNN; Dean Baquet, THE NEW YORK TIMES; Rajiv Chandrasekaran, THE WASHINGTON POST; Sheila Coronel, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM; Josh Friedman, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM; Anne Garrels, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO; James C. Goodale, DEBEVOISE & PLIMPTON; Cheryl Gould, NBC NEWS; Charlayne Hunter-Gault; Gwen Ifill, PBS; Steven L. Isenberg; Jane Kramer, THE NEW YORKER; David Laventhol; Anthony Lewis; David Marash, AL-JAZEERA ENGLISH; Kati Marton; Michael Massing; Geraldine Fabrikant Metz, THE NEW YORK TIMES; Victor Navasky, THE NATION; Andres Oppenheimer, THE MIAMI HERALD; Burl Osborne, THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS; Charles L. Overby, FREEDOM FORUM; Clarence Page, CHICAGO TRIBUNE; Norman Pearlstine, THE CARLYLE GROUP; Dan Rather, HDNET; Gene Roberts, PHILIP MERRILL COLLEGE OF JOURNALISM UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND; Sandra Mims Rowe, THE OREGONIAN; Diane Sawyer, ABC NEWS; Paul C. Tash, ST. PETERSBURG TIMES; Mark Whitaker, NBC NEWS; Matthew Winkler, BLOOMBERG NEWS. ADVISORY BOARD: Tom Brokaw, NBC News; Erwin Potts; John Seigenthaler; The Freedom Forum; First Amendment Center.
330 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001 USA Phone: (212) 4651004 Fax: (212) 4659568 Web: www.cpj.org E-Mail: info@cpj.org
CPJ urges Senegal to decriminalize libel
New York, November 15, 2007—A week after Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade ordered the provisional release of four journalists imprisoned over critical stories, the Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Wade to finally implement his 2004 pledge to repeal criminal libel laws used to jail and prosecute journalists.
November 15, 2007
His Excellency Abdoulaye Wade
President of the Republic of Senegal
c/o Embassy of the Republic of Senegal to the United States
2112 Wyoming Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20008
Via Facsimile: (202) 332-6315
Dear Mr. President,
As an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide, we welcome the provisional release from prison of four Senegalese journalists arrested in recent weeks because of their critical stories. We believe that the government’s continued use of criminal defamation and insult laws to jail and prosecute journalists undermines Senegal’s democratic credentials. We are calling on you to use your influence to finally implement your 2004 pledge to repeal criminal penalties for press offenses, including defamation.
On November 8, presidential Chief of Staff Papa Samba Mboup announced on Radio Futurs Médias that you had given “firm instructions” to release from prison Editor-in-Chief Papa Moussa Guèye and political reporter Pape Moussa Doucar, both at the private daily L’Exclusif, Director Pape Amadou Gaye of the private daily Le Courrier du Jour, and publisher El Malick Seck of news Web Site Rewmi, according to news reports.
Police raided and shut down L’Exclusif the day the paper published a front-page story headlined “Late Outings at the Presidency: The Nocturnal Escapades of President Wade.” Guèye was held for four weeks. Doucar, the author of the story, went into hiding but eventually was arrested, according to local journalists. Guèye was charged with offending the head of state, publishing false news, and endangering public security under Senegal’s penal code, according to defense lawyer Cheikh Tidiane Faye.
Gaye was arrested on November 1 on similar charges, including inciting disobedience in the army, and his paper was sealed over an October 30 editorial titled “Social Tension: What About the Army in All This?” The story was critical of the government because of the rising cost of living and raised critical questions about the role of the army in the crisis, according to local journalists. Gaye could be sentenced up to 10 years in prison if convicted, according to defense lawyer Ciré Cledor Ly.
Seck was detained for 24 hours the same day Rewmi published a front-page story headlined “Souleymane Jules Diop Accuses Wade of Having Run Down the Country.” Diop is an exiled critic of your government.
We ask that you use your influence to persuade the prosecutor to drop all charges against these journalists. They were imprisoned using several criminal statutes of Senegal’s 1977 Penal Code. This code criminalizes “offending” the head of state (Article 254), defamation against courts (Article 259), officials (Article 260), and private citizens (Article 261) with a maximum penalty of two years in prison and fines of up to 1.5 million CFA francs (US$3,300). Journalists can also be imprisoned for up to three years for publishing “false news” (Article 255).
The Senegalese press union and civil society groups, with the help of legal experts and assistance from UNESCO, submitted a comprehensive proposal, including the decriminalization of defamation, to Information Minister Bacar Dia in December 2004. There has been little progress beyond the government’s resistance to the scope of reform, according to CPJ research.
“We cannot let people write what they want with impunity,” Mamadou Kassé, a former journalist who became a senior adviser to Dia, told CPJ this week via telephone. “Sometimes, prison can even protect a journalist from an individual carrying a gun and capable of killing him as we have seen in the Congo,” he said.
The debate was “ongoing,” Kassé said, adding that the government had prioritized journalism training.
We call on you now to fulfill your 2004 pledge to repeal criminal penalties for press offenses, including defamation.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
Joel Simon
Executive Director
The Committee to Protect Journalists
CC:
H.E. Bacar Dia, Minister of Information of the Republic of Senegal
U.S. Embassy to the Republic of Senegal
H.E. Jean-Christophe Rufin, Ambassador of France to the Republic of Senegal
Rama Yade, French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights
Faith Pansy Tlakula, African Commission Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression
Reine Alapini-Gansou, African Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders
Mogens Schmidt, Deputy Assistant Director-General, Freedom of Expression and Democracy Unit, UNESCO
American Society of Newspaper Editors
Amnesty International
Article 19 (United Kingdom)
Artikel 19 (The Netherlands)
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
Freedom Forum
Freedom House
Human Rights Watch
Index on Censorship
International Center for Journalists
International Federation of Journalists
International PEN
International Press Institute
Michael G. Kozak, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Democracy,
Human Rights, and Labor
The Newspaper Guild
The North American Broadcasters Association
Overseas Press Club
CPJ is a New York–based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit www.cpj.org.