The international media right watch group, Reporters Sans Frontieres
(RSF) Wednesday called on the Togolese government to stop the seemingly
frequent practice of seizing newspapers in the country, media sources said.
RSF complained to Togolese interior minister Gen. Sising Walla against
the seizure of the pro-opposition weekly Le Regard newspaper.
An RSF statement issued to PANA headquarters in Dakar said six different
newspapers have been seized by Togolese authorities since 2000.
RSF general secretary Robert Menard Walla to "observe the international
pact on civil and political rights which was ratified by Togo."
The pact guarantees "the freedom to seek, receive and disseminate all
kinds of information and ideas."
According to reports reaching RSF, Togolese policemen seized an unspecified
number of copies of Le Regard from street vendors in Lome on 27 March 2001.
The management of the newspaper said they retrieved none of the 3,500
copies put on the market.
RSF said that Walla, who ordered the seizure, reportedly blamed the
paper for publishing an article entitled "Lome refuses EU financial support
for parliamentary elections" slated for October 2001. Sources close to
the minister said he saw this as libellous.
According to Le Regard, the government is trying to "avoid scrutiny
by the EU, which is no longer willing to finance electoral hold-ups."
The RSF statement quoted Walla as saying that "the paper must provide
evidence" of the information contained in the article.
The government's decision is based on the new Press Code, which provides
that the interior ministry may "as part of its policing powers, order by
decree the seizure of copies of any publication whose content is a press
offence."
The adoption of this new code led to the seizure of the six newspapers
in 2000.
On 2 August 2000, Le Combat du Peuple, an opposition weekly, sued the
interior minister in the Supreme Court. The case has yet to be heard.
On 7 August, the Togolese Private Media Editors' Association (ATEPP)
in a statement called for financial and moral support for the private media
"threatened by the government's totalitarian drift."
