(Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN),   Abidjan, Ivory Coast,  July 3, 2001)

Reporters sans frontieres (RSF) has protested against the seizure of the latest edition of the weekly 'Combat du peuple' which was still being published on Monday when some 30 security agents raided its offices. In a letter addressed to the Interior Ministry Sizing Walla, RSF demanded that the authorities respect the right to a free press. RSF said Walla, who ordered the office raid, defended himself by saying that "the paper was about to publish some articles which could disturb public order".

The weekly's censorship comes less than a month after its managing editor, Lucien Messan, was sentenced to 18 months in jail for signing an official declaration of the Togolese association of private newspaper publishers, which he was not entitled to do.

This latest act of censorship "shows that the Togolese authorities have decided to harass the weekly until it disappears", RSF wrote. Messan, who has been a critic of President Eyadema's regime, was called in for questioning in 1998 when he was accused of publishing "false information".