Lift Ban on Allô Klédu, Protect Media Freedom

Last week, Mali's media regulator silenced one of the country's few remaining public forums, the popular radio phone-in show, Allô Klédu.

On June 25, the High Authority for Communication ordered the suspension of the show, broadcast on the private station Radio Klédu, for two months. The media regulator said the program had become "a platform for listeners to vent against the government," and sought to justify the suspension by citing broadcasts in which callers accused the authorities of profiting from the armed conflict and lacking the will to end it. It said this amounted to defamation under the July 2000 press law.

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"Allô Klédu has long provided a space for ordinary Malians, especially those who are not on social media, to discuss government policies and national developments," a Malian journalist told Human Rights Watch. "For many, it was one of the country's last remaining spaces where people could speak out on matters of public concern."

The suspension comes amid an accelerating assault on independent media and shrinking civic space in Mali. Since seizing power in a 2020 coup, the military authorities have banned media outlets, dissolved civil society organizations, dismantled multiparty politics, and targeted journalists, activists, and political opponents through arbitrary arrests, prosecutions, and enforced disappearances.

The authorities have detained three journalists since February under a sweeping 2019 cyber-criminality law. The law has long drawn criticism for blurring the line between protecting national security and suppressing freedom of expression by criminalizing broadly defined online "threats" and "insults," which carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison. One of the detained journalists, Youssouf Sissoko, was recently sentenced to two years in prison, while the two others, Chahana Takiou and Abdramane Keïta, are awaiting trial. On June 29, the prosecutor of a cybercrime unit in the capital, Bamako, rejected the appeal filed by Takiou's lawyers seeking his release on medical grounds.

By responding to criticism with censorship, the authorities are denying people their freedoms and eroding public trust.

Mali's junta should immediately lift the suspension of Allô Klédu, end its assault on the media, and uphold Malians' right to freely express their views without fear of censorship or reprisal.

Ilaria Allegrozzi, Senior Sahel Researcher