Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the release of Zakari Alzouma, the editor the independent weekly Opinions, who has been detained since October 30 in Niamey as a result of a libel complaint by the interior minister and whose case will not be heard for another week.
“Niger’s legislation on press offences comes in handy for a government that does not want to give up its bad habits,” Paris-based RSF said on Tuesday. “By continuing to send journalists to prison, the authorities are just putting off the day when they will finally have to abandon their repressive ways. Furthermore, this kind of case puts Niger’s judges in embarrassing and contradictory situations resulting in absurdities.”
Alzouma was formally charged yesterday with being “caught in the act” of libel although he had already spent four days in police custody. He was due to appear in court in Niamey on Tuesday but the hearing was postponed to November 11 on grounds that a piece of prosecution evidence was missing. Meanwhile, Alzouma has been placed in pre-trial custody in the main Niamey prison, with the result that he will have spent at least 13 days in detention by the time his case is finally heard.
His lawyer told RSF he was “very shocked by the postponement, which is completely unwarranted.” He said he also failed to understand the prosecutors’ refusal, without offering any reason, to agree to Alzouma’s conditional release. “Zakari Alzouma is charged with a press offence, not a crime,” he said. “There is no reason for keeping him in detention.”
Alzouma is being prosecuted because of an article claiming that interior minister Albadé Abouba “took advantage” of Prime Seini Oumarou’s absence to award a US company a contract for the transport of pilgrims to Mecca that had already promised to a local company.
