DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Media organizations in Senegal organized a blackout day on Tuesday to protest the government’s strict measures that they say are directly targeting them and aimed at restricting press freedom in the West African country.
Television screens went black on the main TV stations TFM, ITV and 7 TV, and radio stations such as RFM and iradio were silent. Most daily newspapers did not publish Tuesday’s editions, except for the government-run Le Soleil and the private pro-government WalfQuotidien and Yoor Yoor Bi.
The move comes as tensions between media organizations and the government are mounting, fueling international concerns about press freedom in one of Africa’s most stable democracies. In addition, Senegal’s major media companies have racked up huge debts over the years, threatening the sector’s economic survival.
The Senegalese Council of Press Distributors and Publishers, an organization representing both private and public media companies, alleged that the government had frozen media outlets’ bank accounts, allegedly because they owed back taxes, “seized production equipment” and “unilaterally and illegally terminated advertising contracts.”
The claims, published in an editorial in Le Quotidien on Monday, could not be independently verified. Government officials were not immediately available for comment.
“For almost three months, the Senegalese press has been experiencing one of the darkest periods in its history,” the organization wrote in the editorial.
In June, Senegal’s Prime Minister said Ousmane Sonkowho took office earlier this year, condemned what he described as an “embezzlement of public funds” in the media sector.
According to the international watchdog Reporters Without Borders, the number of police violence against journalists and the arrests of government critics has increased in Senegal in recent years. The organization has called on the Senegalese authorities to guarantee press freedom.
According to the group, known by its French acronym RSF, Senegal has fallen from 49th to 94th place in the past three years on the World Press Freedom Index, an annual ranking of countries that assesses several factors including the ability and safety of reporters.
“Journalists are not adequately protected when they do their job and politicians are not playing their part in the issue,” Sadibou Marong, RSF’s West Africa chief, told The Associated Press. “Worse still, political forces have compromised the right to inform and be informed.”
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