Senegal news bosses call media blackout over press freedom

DAKAR

Senegalese news organizations called for a national media blackout on Tuesday to protest against threats to press freedom and pressures faced by the industry.

"There will be no newspapers. There will be no radio or television broadcasts. News websites belonging to press companies will not be publishing," Mamadou Ibra Kane, who heads the Senegalese Council of Press Distributors and Publishers (CDEPS), told AFP on Aug. 12.

Senegal's media sector has long faced economic difficulties and many reporters complain of precarious working conditions.

But many journalists in the West African country judge comments by recently installed Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko as threatening their profession.

Warning of "one of the darkest chapters in the history" of its industry, the CDEPS said that the freedom of the press was "threatened in Senegal" in a joint editorial published on Aug. 12.

The body, which groups editors of both private and public companies, complained that authorities were "freezing the bank accounts" of media companies for non-payment of tax.

It also condemned the "seizure of production equipment", the "unilateral and illegal termination of advertising contracts" and the "freezing of payments" due to the media.

Sonko, who took office in early April, denounced what he called the "misappropriation of public funds" in the sector, alleging some media chiefs were failing to pay social security contributions.

Speaking in late June, the premier also slammed news outlets who he said were writing whatever they wished without reliable sources in the name of press freedom, comments which many in the media took as a threat.