A Senegalese journalist was charged with “spreading false news” and placed under judicial supervision on Wednesday May 3, the day Senegal fell 31 places in the annual press freedom index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
Babacar Touré, head of the Kewoulo news site, had been in police custody since April 26 in Dakar after a complaint from a security guard who accused him of attacking him in a video and endangering his safety, according to lawyer Moussa Sarr. Mr. Touré “has been charged with defamation, spreading false news and endangering the lives of others and placed under judicial supervision”, Me Sarr told AFP.
The complainant, presented in the press as close to the judicial authorities, contacted the police after the journalist reported facts related to the ongoing legal proceedings against opponent Ousmane Sonko. The latter is to be tried on May 8 for defamation against the Minister of Tourism, Mame Mbaye Niang, then on May 16 for alleged “rape and death threats” after a complaint from an employee of a beauty salon.
The Sonko cases have been a source of tension for at least two years in Senegal. The opponent denounces a plot to torpedo his candidacy for the presidency of 2024, which the power denies.
A journalist from private television Wal Fadjri, Pape Ndiaye, has been imprisoned since March 7 for “contempt of court” and “spreading false news” after questioning the independence of justice in the rape case of which he is accused. Mr. Sonko. Pape Ndiaye is the second journalist imprisoned in recent months in Senegal, after Pape Alé Niang, accused of having disseminated “information likely to harm national defense” and “dissemination of false news” around the Sonko affair.
In Senegal, where the possibility of a third term for President Macky Sall is arousing opposition, RSF denounces “the sharp deterioration in the security conditions of journalists”. This country, now ranked 104th, was nevertheless a “regional model until recently”.
