PREVIEW
National newspapers refused to publish for a day in protest against shrinking press rights under the new government
President Bassirou Dioumaye Faye faces an early test of his credentials in a damaging row over press freedom.
Last week, after two leading media outlets announced that they had to suspend publications, the Council of Press Distributors and Publishers (CDEPS) organised a Day Without Press on 13 August, with newspapers consisting solely of a black covers and radio stations playing music instead of reporting the news.
The Coordination of Press Associations (CAP), which represents local media organisations, condemned the ‘multifaceted pressures’ facing Senegalese media. These include tax inspections; notices for outstanding licensing fees that the media currently find very difficult to pay; and public entities illegally suspending commercial contracts with private media.
CAP has accused the government of freezing the bank accounts of media companies and seizing their equipment for failing to pay their fees.
Ministers say that they want to reclaim US$60 million in tax debts which had been written off by Faye’s predecessor Macky Sall’s government.
The row is awkward for Faye, who swept to power following a wave of pro-democracy protests after Sall attempted to delay presidential elections, and now faces charges of stifling press freedom (AC Vol 65 No 7, Team Anti-Système takes over the system).
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko’s remarks to Pastef Les Patriotes activists in June that the new government would ‘no longer allow the media to write whatever they want about people without any reliable sources in the name of so-called press freedom,’ also raised concerns among free speech advocates.
According to Reporters sans frontières (RSF), at least seven other private media companies are on the brink of going out of business.
In June, RSF submitted about 30 recommendations to the new Senegalese authorities, including an urgent call to reform public aid as well as clarification of the conditions for news production and more precise rules on media transparency.
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