The Chadian government has been harassing the new, privately-owned weekly La Voix. On November 28, one of its reporters was verbally abused by the interior minister and then detained for several hours while, on December 3, a court is due to rule on a government complaint challenging its legality, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported.
While covering the installation of a new police director-general on November 28, La Voix reporter Eloi Miandadji introduced himself to interior and public security minister Ahmat Mahamat Bachir and requested an interview. Bachir reacted by shouting abuse at him and, in the presence of witnesses, said La Voix “will soon be closed.” Miandadji was briefly detained and was forced to sign an undertaking not to publish anything about the ceremony, while the memory card of his camera was confiscated.
Meanwhile, after hearing the government’s complaint against La Voix on November 26, a court in N’Djamena is due to issue a ruling on December 3.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a journalist based in N’Djamena told RSF, “We all know that this newspaper has everything in order, both administratively and financially. The government accuses it of receiving funding from abroad, especially France. That is ridiculous.”
La Voix’s shareholders were summoned for questioning at the headquarters of the security police on November 18. A month before that, on October 14, the newspaper’s Cameroonian editor, Innocent Ebodé, was deported although his papers were in order.
“After deporting La Voix’s editor, a Cameroonian national, and putting strong pressure on its shareholders and members for more than six weeks, the Chadian authorities are now trying to obtain the newspaper’s closure,” Paris-based RSF said.
“We vigorously condemn these appalling manoeuvres against a publication that has done nothing wrong except enjoy a degree of success since its launch last May and remain outside the government’s control,” it added. “We urge the authorities to abandon these proceedings and allow the newspaper to operate freely.”
Chad was ranked 132nd out of 175 countries in the 2009 RSF press freedom index.
