A court in N’Djamena Saturday ordered the automatic seizure of all issues published by the privately-owned weekly La Voix, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported.
“This is a political decision, one that is marred by irregularities,” said one of the newpaper’s lawyers, Jean-Bernard Padaré. La Voix hopes to continue publishing.
The court could not legally order the newspaper’s closure so it issued the automatic seizure order because the effect would be the same. The grounds given by the judge was the absence of an editor. In fact, La Voix does have an editor. It is Innocent Ebodé, a Cameroonian citizen who was deported on October 14 although there were no grounds for his deportation.
RSF has been told that Ebodé is now on his way back to Chad with the aim of challenging this decision.
“We condemn this baseless decision, which reflects a desire to close the newspaper,” Paris-based RSF said. “The interior ministry’s threats have unfortunately been carried out.”
