Reporters Without Borders today welcomed the release of journalist Houssein Ahmed Farah, a contributor to the opposition weekly Le Renouveau and member of the Movement for Democratic Renewal (MRD), but condemned another raid on Le Renouveau that followed his release.
Farah was freed on 13 May after a judge ruled there was not enough evidence to establish that he wrote an article published in the newspaper on 26 April linking President Ismaël Omar Guelleh to an alleged “sex scandal” involving a businessman from Dubai.
Within hours of his release, police from the department of criminal and special cases carried out another raid on Le Renouveau’s premises in the capital’s Hayableh neighbourhood, where newly acquired printing material was being stored.
As a result of the seizure of printing material in an earlier raid in February, the newspaper was unable to appear for a month. The material was never returned. Distribution of the newspaper has again been halted since the 13 May raid.
