The government of Niger has refused to provide Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) secretary-general Robert Ménard with a visa for a trip he was to have made to Niamey to participate from there in a special day of solidarity with the organisation’s imprisoned correspondent, Moussa Kaka, which Radio France Internationale is organising on March 10.
After submitting a visa application to Niger’s embassy in Paris on February 19, Ménard was notified seven days later that his request had been denied. Communications Minister and government spokesman Mohammed Ben Omar subsequently confirmed the refusal to him by telephone.
“We deplore this discriminatory treatment, which is not in Niger’s interests,” RSF said. “We hope the government will not persist in this attitude, which will just perpetuate the status quo and hurt Niger’s image even more.”
Ménard made two recent trips to Niamey without any problem, in November and January, to visit Kaka in Niamey prison and to seek the release of two French journalists employed by the Franco-German TV station ARTE, Thomas Dandois and Pierre Creisson. Arrested in December after visiting northern Niger, where the Tuareg rebels of the Niger People’s Movement for Justice (MNJ) are active, Dandois and Creisson were freed on January 18.
The Niamey correspondent of both RSF and RFI, Kaka was arrested on September 20 and charged with “complicity in a conspiracy against the authority of the state” because his phone calls with an MNJ leader allegedly demonstrated that he “conniving” with the rebels. He is facing a possible life sentence.
