Togo Detains TV5 Monde Journalist, Forces Deletion of Protest Videos

Dakar, Senegal — The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Togolese authorities to investigate and hold accountable the gendarmes who detained journalist Flore Monteau and forced her to delete footage she took of anti-government protests on June 6. Monteau was released the same day.

"The arrest of Flore Monteau continues a pattern of censorship through detention by Togolese law enforcement," said Moussa Ngom, CPJ's Francophone Africa representative. "Togolese authorities must put an end to such abuses and ensure safe reporting conditions for journalists during public events."

Monteau, a correspondent with the French public broadcaster TV5 Monde, told CPJ that gendarmes snatched her camera as she filmed their response to anti-government protests that had started the day before in Lomé, the Togolese capital. They then took her to a nearby gendarmerie station, where they deleted her footage and forced her to unlock her phone to check for images of the protest, she said.

After holding her for several hours, the gendarmes released Monteau without charge and returned her camera and phone.

The June 5-6 protests followed the arrest at the end of May of Togolese rapper Essowe Tchalla, who goes by the stage name Aamron. Tchalla had called for public demonstrations on the June 6 birthday of President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé. Gnassingbé has ruled Togo since the death of his father, the previous president, in 2005.

In April, the police censored another journalist's images in the same way. Officers in Lomé arrested Albert Agbeko, editor of the private online newspaper Togo Scoop, brought him to their office, and forced him to delete images from his phone taken during an operation to revise the country's official list of people entitled to vote, according to Agbeko and news reports. Agbeko was also one of at least six journalists physically attacked in September 2024 as they covered an opposition party meeting.

CPJ emailed the Armed Forces Ministry for comment on the arrest and the forced deletion of images, but it has not yet received a response. CPJ's calls to the Togolese police went unanswered.

Read the original article on CPJ.