A Malian journalist has been missing since he co-hosted a press conference in Bamako on Thursday to demand the release of a colleague, the group to which he belongs and a professional organization said on Friday. The Collective for the Development of the Republic said in a press release that it had “no news from its administrative secretary since Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 8 p.m.”.
After a CDR press conference, “Aliou Touré was seen neither by his family nor by his relatives, even less by his collaborators. All attempts to reach him through our usual channels have been unsuccessful,” the collective said. The Maison de la presse, an organization defending the interests of the profession, also expressed its “concern”. In a statement, she called on the authorities “to do everything possible to find him safe and sound.”
Aliou Touré participated Thursday in the animation of a press conference to demand the release of Mohamed Youssouf Bathily, known as Ras Bath, known host and figure of the CDR. Ras Bath was charged and imprisoned on March 13 after saying that former Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga who died in custody a year ago under the junta had been “murdered”.
Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga had been between 2017 and 2019 the Prime Minister of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, overthrown in August 2020 by colonels still in power today. Aliou Touré replaced Ras Bath at the microphone of the program he hosted on Renouveau FM radio. In its statement, the CDR addressing the junta writes that “the State is the guarantor of the freedom and security of all citizens”.
Discordant voices are now struggling to be heard in Mali without risking being disturbed. The NGO Reporters Without Borders wrote in a report published this week that the exercise of the profession of journalist was constantly becoming more difficult in the Sahel, between the violence of the jihadists and armed groups on the one hand, and the pressure exerted by on the other hand by military authorities and regimes.
