Niger: Editor And Reporter Arrested a Day After Another Editor Got Suspended Sentence

press release

Reporters Without Borders condemns the arrests of Moussa Aksar, the editor of the privately-owned weekly L'Evénement, and one of his journalists, Sani Aboubacar, on 12 November on a charge of libelling the head of the state power company. Their arrests came a day after another newspaper editor got a three-month suspended sentence after 12 days in pre-trial custody.

"What redress do plaintiffs get from imprisoning journalists?" Reporters Without Borders asked "And if the journalists are finally acquitted, won't innocent people have been jailed? Many questions are raised by these arrests. By not keeping its election promises to amend the law and by not giving itself appropriate tools for handling defamation cases, Niger's government has chosen to subject civil society to deliberate legal injustice and thereby undermine the country's democratic institutions."

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