Niger has freed an editor-in-chief arrested after his TV information channel aired a programme vital of the ruling junta, the broadcaster informed AFP on Monday.
Seyni Amadou, editor-in-chief of personal broadcaster Canal 3 TV, was arrested on Saturday, within the newest crackdown on the press because the army took energy in a 2023 coup.
His detention got here a day after Niger’s communications minister, Sidi Raliou Mohamed, suspended the channel for a month following Canal 3’s broadcast of a narrative ranking the efficiency of assorted members of presidency.
Mohamed additionally suspended Amadou’s press card for 3 months.
“Seyni Amadou has simply been freed,” stated Canal 3 TV’s director common Ismael Abdoulaye.
Abdoulaye had beforehand informed AFP that the communications minister had lifted the channel and Amadou’s reporting suspensions.
Having earlier on Monday known as for Amadou’s launch, media rights watchdog Reporters With out Borders (RSF) welcomed the lifting of the suspensions, which it had branded “unlawful”.
Niger lies eightieth out of 180 nations on the 2024 Press Freedom Index revealed by Paris-based RSF.
Because the military ousted democratically elected president Mohamed Bazoum in 2023, the Sahel nation has clamped down on dissent, press freedom and civil society.
In November, one other journalist at Canal 3, Serge Mathurin Adou, was detained and later convicted on allegations he tried to destabilise fellow junta-led Sahel nation Burkina Faso.
The managing director of every day newspaper L’Enqueteur, Idrissa Soumana Maiga, was imprisoned for 2 months for “undermining nationwide defence,” earlier than acquiring provisional launch in July.
And in September and October 2023, journalist Samira Sabou was arrested earlier than being provisionally launched and charged with disseminating knowledge more likely to disturb public order.
The junta has additionally blocked worldwide channels together with Radio France Internationale (RFI), France 24 and the BBC.
AFP