Radio Mada reporter Evariste Ramanantsoavina has been released in Madagascar after being held since May 5, when soldiers arrested him in order to force him to reveal the location from which the station was broadcasting in defiance of a closure order.
“We are relieved to learn that Ramanantsoavina is free at last,” Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. “It is nonetheless deplorable that he spent two weeks in detention although the authorities had no substantive evidence that he had committed any crime.”
An Antananarivo court ordered his release at a midday hearing on May 20 after acquitting him on five charges, including “inciting revolt,” and fining him 370 euros on a sixth charge of disseminating false information. Many journalists were in the courtroom for the hearing, but Ramanantsoavina remained in prison and was finally released at about 5 pm.
Arrested at his home by masked soldiers at 5 am on May 5, he had been charged on May 7 and incarcerated in the capital’s Antanimora prison.
Radio Mada supports the exiled former president, Marc Ravalomanana. After Ramanantsoavina had been forced to reveal the secret location from which it had been broadcasting since the change of government, soldiers then went to the location, dismantled the transmitter and seized equipment.
