Dakar – A jailed Senegalese journalist critical of President Macky Sall started a hunger strike on Friday to protest his “unfair and arbitrary imprisonment”, a press organisation told AFP.
Pape Ale Niang, director of the “Dakar Matin” news site, has been held in Senegal’s capital for almost one month following his arrest on November 6.
He is accused of having broadcast confidential messages about security arrangements surrounding last month’s interrogation of leading opposition politician Ousmane Sonko over rape allegations.
“He (Niang) started a hunger strike today,” Ibrahima Lissa Faye, an official at Senegal’s Coordination of Press Associations, which represents several press trade unions, told AFP.
“We couldn’t talk him out of it.”
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Niang announced his intention to go on hunger strike on Thursday, speaking of a “kidnapping, my sequestration and psychological torture in (police) premises, my arbitrary and unfair imprisonment” in a jail near Dakar.
The secretary general of international NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urged President Sall to respect press freedoms when he visited Niang on Thursday.
The West African nation’s international image and Sall’s “legacy to history” were at stake, he said.
Niang’s detention sparked fierce criticism from the press and civil society organisations, with hundreds of protesters demonstrating in Dakar last month calling for his release.
Senegal was ranked 73rd out of 180 in RSF’s 2022 press freedom ranking, falling 24 places from the previous year.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Twitter/@bayemomardieng
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