Senegal: Court seizes magazine
A magistrate’s court in Dakar, capital of Senegal, on June 3, 2009 suspended the circulation of June 2009 edition of L’Essentiel, a monthly current affairs magazine and ordered its seizure over headlines on the cover-page that the court claimed were an “insult” to President Abdoulaye Wade. According to the presiding magistrate the headlines: “Freemasonry: The Grand Lodge of France Conquers Senegal”, “Nine years after change, the state explodes, The Mourides are in control and Touba in suffering”, were not only insulting to President Wade but also “likely to disturb public order”.
A magistrate’s court in Dakar, capital of Senegal, on June 3, 2009 suspended the circulation of June 2009 edition of L’Essentiel, a monthly current affairs magazine and ordered its seizure over headlines on the cover-page that the court claimed were an “insult” to President Abdoulaye Wade.
According to the presiding magistrate the headlines: “Freemasonry: The Grand Lodge of France Conquers Senegal”, “Nine years after change, the state explodes, The Mourides are in control and Touba in suffering”, were not only insulting to President Wade but also “likely to disturb public order”.
Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent reported that the court said its decision was based on Article 820-1 of the county’s rules of civil procedure, which allows for the “outright suspension” of any publication that has the tendency to “disturb public peace”.
The correspondent said the June edition attracted the attention of the authorities after a teaser had been run in two privately-owned L’ As and L’Observatuer newspapers on May 26 and May 28 respectively.
Following the teaser, the country’s police commissioner requested for a copy of the magazine which was then printing and ordered the printers to halt the publication. Mustapha Sow, managing editor of the Essentiel was subsequently invited and interrogated by the Criminal Investigations Department on May 27.
The Council of Broadcasters and Newspapers Publishers in a communiqué issued on May 29 declared its solidarity with Sow and urged him to formally notify the printers and appeal for the lifting of the suspension.