Dakar — The Committee to Protect Journalists urges authorities in Niger to immediately release Ali Soumana, publishing director of the privately owned Le Courrier newspaper, after Prime Minister Ali Mahamane Lamine Zeine complained of defamation.

"Ali Soumana's imprisonment illustrates that press freedom in Niger has declined since last year, when President Abdourahmane Tchiani reintroduced prison sentences for defamation, said Moussa Ngom, CPJ's Francophone Africa representative. "Nigerien authorities must immediately release Ali Soumana and reform their laws in favor of media freedom and the public's right to know."

On September 6, judicial police arrested Soumana following a complaint by Zeine, who is also finance minister, relating to an August 28 article, which alleged that the prime minister signed a settlement agreement to avoid legal proceedings over cigarette customs fraud.

On September 8, an investigating judge in the capital Niamey charged Soumana with defamation through the press, complicity in defamation by electronic means, and dissemination of data likely to disturb public order or violate human dignity by electronic means, his lawyer, Ahmed Mahamane, told CPJ. Soumana was incarcerated in Say prison, 60 kilometers south of Niamey, he added.

In April, Soumana was detained for four days over a separate defamation complaint filed by the former director general of customs, who later withdrew the case, Mahamane said.

In June 2024, Niger's military government, which has ruled since a coup in 2023, reinstated a criminal sentence of up to three years in jail for defamation by electronic means, which had been abolished in 2022, and up to five years for disseminating data deemed likely to disturb public order.

CPJ's calls to request comment from Zeine's office went unanswered.