Chad’s press unites against presidential curbs
March 27, 2008 (NDJAMENA) — Chad’s main private newspapers published Thursday a special joint edition to denounce a draconian crackdown on the media by President Idriss Deby following a foiled coup bid.
Ten thousand copies of the Journal des journaux (Newspaper of newspapers) — a combined effort by the staff of five papers and a radio station — were released as a one-off protest against the restrictions.
No private papers have appeared in Ndjamena since Deby signed “Ordinance No 5” on February 20 as part of a series of emergency measures imposed after a bloody rebel assault on the capital early that month.
This decree repealed previous press legislation and provided for censorship, jail terms of up to five years for “offences against the president of the republic” and a ban on covering activities of the armed opposition.
The five papers — Ndjamena Bi-Hebdo, Le Temps, Notre temps, L’Observateur and Le Miroir — joined forces with FL-Liberte radio and the international media watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders – RSF) to bring out the special edition.
A cartoon of Deby brandishing a weapon marked Ordinance No 5 illustrates the theme that “the press has been put to death.”
“With contempt for our concerns and determined to have a showdown with the press, President Deby has signed an ordinance that is without doubt the most liberticidal (freedom-killing) law passed in Chad,” the editorial said.
The state of emergency ended on March 15, but the ordinance still stands as media legislation, and the only newspaper to have gone on appearing since is the pro-government daily Le Progres.
The editorial compared Deby’s measure to those of Joseph Stalin in the former Soviet Union and the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, while a separate article described it as illegal.
“This ordinance is illegal, not just because of its heinous nature, but because it makes it possible to repeal a law. This is a power no head of state, even in wartime, can claim,” the article said.
The special edition declared that the only benefit Chad’s government could gain from the measure “is to present the image of a dictatorial country.”
After the battle for Ndjamena, in which rebels backed by Sudan were repelled with Frenchy logistical and reconnaissance support, about a dozen Chadian journalists went into exile, according to RSF.
A few have returned and others visit Ndjamena.
French journalist Sonia Rolley, the Chad correspondent for Agence France-Presse and Radio France Internationale, had to leave the country on March 20 after the government withdrew her work permit.
(AFP)