2024-05-10 03:44:47
This Friday, May 3, 2024, the Union of Press Professionals of Guinea (SPPG) celebrated World Press Freedom Day through a press conference at the Common House of Journalists in Conakry.
In a long report made public, the SPPG recalled the physical attacks perpetrated against journalists, in Conakry and in towns in the interior of the country, particularly in N’zérékoré and Kankan, the arrests of dozens of journalists, the muzzling radios and televisions and the withdrawal of the Canal+ and Star-Times bouquet from private TV channels. Below is the full statement
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IN GUINEA
* THE 23 CAPITAL SINS OF THE CNRD (2023 SPPG REPORT)
I-THE FACTS
The year 2023, extended to the first 4 months of 2024, presents itself as the dark year for the Guinean press. This period marked by the desire of the military junta to have whatever it took to control the country’s independent media and journalists has seen everything that can happen to information professionals apart from the fact that we do not have, at the moment, recorded cases of assassination of journalists.
In the summary of this report, which we were unable to publish in January because of everything you know, we will discuss some illustrative cases of the endless campaign to destroy the media ecosystem launched last year by the CNRD:
1-In 2023, the military in power did not wait long to launch hostilities. Already on January 4, Ousmane OC Cissé of radio Djoma Siguiri was brutally beaten by law enforcement agents on the orders of the deputy central commissioner of Siguri while this journalist was covering a street demonstration;
2-On January 22, 2023, while covering the eviction operations at the Donka teachers’ block, Adama Diallo; intern at radio 7 sur 7 was arrested by gendarmes and taken to the Hamdalaye gendarmerie before being released after 1 and a half hours of confinement;
3-On Thursday January 9, 2023, Charles Wright, then Minister of Justice and Human Rights, illegally ordered the Attorney General at the Court of Appeal of Conakry to initiate legal proceedings against Mohamed Mara and Lamine Guirassy all of HADAFO Media group. An illegal approach finally stopped by the SPPG which had planned a giant sit-in in the place of the martyrs;
4-Michel PIVI, Secretary General of the regional branch of SPPG-Kankan, was physically attacked by agents of the Kankan governor’s guard in front of the latter who did nothing to prevent this attack;
5-On Monday April 3, 2023, the arrest and sequestration by the Gendarmerie of Sekou Bourgeois Camara of Radio Espace Kankan;
6-On Saturday April 8, 2023, Sayon CAMARA from Africa Guinea was verbally attacked by a municipal councilor from Ratoma then physically attacked by police officers who even took him and sequestered him at the Kaporo police station while the journalist was covering the operations of clearing of road rights-of-way in Kipé;
7-The sad reality of withholding information at the Presidency of the Republic where access is still refused to private media unfortunately still continues;
8-Barely a week after the celebration of International Press Freedom Day last year, on May 9, 2023, Ibrahima Foulamory Bah of the Courrier de Conakry news site was arrested by elements of the presidential guard posted around the prime minister’s office where they took away his phone and deleted elements of his report. He will be sequestered there for approximately 1 hour. Then he is photographed against his will with threats like
9-Restriction of the internet a few days before, and the day of the demonstration of the forces of Guinea prevented on May 17, 2023
11-Sabari and Lov fm equipment dismantled by ARPT executives accompanied by gendarmes. The then Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Ousmane Gaoual Diallo had denied this unprecedented case of theft but ultimately, it was at the ARPT that the equipment was actually found;
12-The government, through its spokesperson, threatens at a press conference to close any media it believes would try to pit communities against each other and declares that the internet is not a right;
13-Reporting in Coyah on June 16, 2023, Lamine Kaba of Espace TV was physically attacked in Toguiron near Condéyah by the close guard of the prosecutor of the Coyah first instance court on the latter’s orders. After having knocked him down, the elements neutralized him on the ground under the helpless gaze of his colleague from the reporting team;
14-On June 22, 3023, Saliou Benjamin CAMARA of the Guinea Souverain information site was brutally arrested behind the fence of the prime minister’s office where he was covering a demonstration by Guineans repatriated from Tunisia. The journalist will be taken on board and taken to the central police station in Kaloum before being released and placed at the disposal of General Sékou Jamal PENDESSA;
15-In August 2023, an element of the special forces attacked a journalist in N’Zérékoré and damaged his phone which he deliberately crushed with the help of his rangers;
August 17, 2023, still in N’zérékoré, a journalist attacked by unknown persons who followed him to his home;
18-During September, Ansou Bailo Baldé and Mariama Bhoye all from Cavi Médias were prevented from continuing a report in Dubréka, their badges removed by police officers while they were reporting on the deterioration of the road which crosses this town to the region from Boké;
19-In August 2023, the Guinea Matin and Inquisitor sites illegally closed. And Guinée Matin will remain so for practically 3 months. While the SPPG had scheduled another demonstration after the one repressed on October 16, 2023 in Kaloum, the site was finally liberated 72 hours before the day;
20-Manipulated at will by the military junta, the high communications authority broke the sad record of suspensions illegally pronounced against journalists Abdoul Latif Diallo and his site Dépêche Guinée suspended on September 11 for one month then, for 9 other months. Bouka Barry was also suspended on September 13, 2023 for one month. Then, Mohamed Kouyaté from the Évasion group, Habib Marouane CAMARA from Révélateur 224 and Mamoudou Babila Keita from inquisiteur are also victims of illegal suspensions by the HAC;
21-Used as an instrument of repression by the CNRD, some of the magistrates were called upon to break the momentum of resistance of the SPPG in its fight for press freedom. Thus, on October 16, 2023 while demonstrating to demand the release of Guinée Matin, 13 journalists including members of the national office of the union were savagely beaten at the railway station and taken to the central police station in Kaloum before being indicted by the Kaloum Court of First Instance. Among the seriously injured, 2 female journalists (Mariama SALL of HADAFO fractured in the blow like Foula Mory and Mariama Bhoye BARRY of Vavi Médias hit in the arm by a tear gas projectile). Government spokesperson Ousmane Gaoual declared in front of the cameras that there was no violence against journalists before being contradicted by a particularly violent video.
22-On January 19, 2024, the day after the prevented demonstration that he led the day before, General Sékou Jamal PENDESSA (SG of the SPPG) and 3 other journalists including 2 members of the national office (Abdoulaye Cissé and Amadou Oury BARRY) were arbitrarily arrested in the middle of traffic at the Dixinn terrace as they were returning from the court where around ten journalists arrested the day before had just had their case dismissed. Arriving at the Kipé research brigade, the three others were released but General PENDESSA will be placed in police custody until January 22; date on which he will be presented to the Dixinn court where the prosecutor will issue a committal warrant which will take him to the Coronthie central house. In total, he spent 40 days in deprivation of liberty. He will be unjustly sentenced to 6 months in prison, 3 of which will be suspended, before being released on appeal on February 28 against a backdrop of social pressure marked by the general strike of the Guinean trade union movement;
23-One of the darkest pages of CNRD governance is this campaign of muzzling of the media and destruction of jobs materialized by the jamming of FM waves and the withdrawal of TV channels from the distribution packages of images which lasted 6 months since November 2023.
As a result, more than 500 jobs were destroyed in press companies in Conakry and within the country. Among the workers forced into technical unemployment are pregnant women whose pregnancies remain exposed to the risk of complications during childbirth.
II-RECOMMENDATIONS
-On the occasion of the commemoration of May 3, International Press Freedom Day, the SPPG recommends to the authorities to release the media unconditionally;
-The SPPG recommends to the authorities the payment of damages that these illegal restrictions have caused to the journalists and media victims;
-The SPPG recommends to the high communications authority to report all suspension decisions that it has illegally taken against journalists whose names are mentioned above;
-The SPPG calls on information professionals to remain committed to the ethics and deontology of our noble profession;
-The SPPG demands the rehabilitation of its Secretary General arbitrarily arrested and sentenced for having legitimately requested the release of the media and the internet.
Conakry, the 3rd of 2024
The National Office