IFEX - News from the international freedom of expression community
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ALERT - GUINEA

16 December 2003

Issue of newspaper banned

SOURCE: Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), Windhoek

**MISA and the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), as a joint activity,
will henceforth issue alerts, statements and appeals to highlight media
freedom and wider human rights violations in West Africa. See www.misa.org
and www.mediafoundationwa.org for more information**

(MISA/IFEX) - The following is a joint MISA-MFWA alert:

State authorities in Guinea have banned an issue of the weekly newspaper
"Jeune Afrique l'Intelligent".

According to MFWA-Guinea, court officials who carried out the seizure order
on 10 December 2003 refused to give reasons for their action. The issue in
question (no. 2239, dated 7 to 13 December) carried an article with the
headline, "Witch-Hunt in Army", which is said to have displeased the Guinean
authorities. The story documented examples of the current wave of arrests
and reprisals against key opposition figures and some army officials who are
perceived to oppose the third term ambitions of the president, General
Lansana Conté.

In spite of the ban, vendors are reportedly secretly selling photocopies of
the newspaper, in response to public demand.

BACKGROUND:
Following rumours of a coup attempt in mid-November, scores of army
officials have been arrested and detained by loyalist forces. Prominent
among the detainees are former army commandant Kadr Doubuya, Commander Aly
Camara, the presidential guard's second-in-command, Sikdiki Camara, a senior
official at the gendarmerie training school, and Lieutenant Alpha Ousmana
Diallo, son of Bubacar Biro Diallo, the former speaker of Parliament, who
later became a fierce critic of the president.

The 69-year-old Conté has been in office since 1984, when the army took
power in a coup barely one week after the death of Sékou Touré, the
country's first post-independence president. General Conté won the country's
first multi-party presidential elections in 1993, amid accusations of ballot
rigging and voter intimidation. He was re-elected in 1998, again under
highly disputed and generally discredited circumstances.

In November 2001, a nationwide referendum, believed to be largely flawed,
amended the constitution to allow the president to run for an unlimited
number of five-year terms. The major opposition parties in the country have
boycotted the next elections, scheduled for 21 December 2003, a situation
which effectively guarantees a lifetime presidency for the ailing former
military dictator.

Since March, the MFWA has reported at least four incidents of abuse of the
freedom of expression rights of journalists and newspapers for publicising
information related to the third term ambitions of President Conté.

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Send appeals to the president:
- protesting the ban on the 7 to13 December issue of "Jeune Afrique
l'Intelligent" newspaper

APPEALS TO:

His Excellency Lasana Conté
President, Republic of Guinea
Guinea Conakry

Please copy appeals to the source if possible.

For further information, contact Zoe Titus, Program Coordinator, Media
Freedom Monitoring, MISA, Street Address: 21 Johann Albrecht Street, Mailing
Address; Private Bag 13386 Windhoek, Namibia, tel: +264 61 232 975, fax:
+264 61 248 016, e-mail: [email protected], Internet: http://www.misa.org,
or Kwame Karikari, Executive Director, Media Foundation for West Africa, P.
O. Box LG 730, Legon, Ghana, tel: +233 21 24 24 70, fax: +233 21 22 10 84,
e-mail: [email protected], Internet: http://www.mediafoundationwa.org

The information contained in this alert is the sole responsibility of MISA.
In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please credit MISA.
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