In Guinea, the private press is in complete decline. For more than two months, several radio and television stations have seen their waves jammed or their antennas simply suspended. This situation, which continues, is already pushing press groups to put their staff on technical unemployment.
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After two months of restrictions on access to social networks and the arrest, last week, of the general secretary of the Union of Press Professionals (SPPG) for having called for demonstrations, several media outlets risk going out of business and denouncing censorship orchestrated by the transitional authorities.
An emblematic figure of the Guinean press and founder of Hadafo Médias, the oldest audiovisual group in the country, journalist Lamine Guirassy has not escaped the jamming of his radio stations and the suspension of his TV channel.
Before becoming widespread, the disruption only targeted the flagship radio show Espace FM The Big Mouths. From now on, the radio no longer occupies its FM frequency. Instead, it’s a propaganda song dating from the First Republic that plays on repeat.
“ It’s music to pay tribute to the Guinean army, to fight traitors. It’s a Bembeya Jazz National song in fact, that Demba sang in the 1970s to allude a little to the 1970 aggression in Guinea, I think. This is the song that loops on the frequency. For us, this is the second time that we are witnessing a transition, after Konaté, after Dadis. In the days of Alpha, we denounced so much, we criticized so much, but Alpha never went to this extent, to ask operators to hide channels or to jam frequencies. He never did it. What is happening is unprecedented. It’s so bad it’s just unbelievable », protests Lamine Guirassy.
The Fréquence Media Group has denounced similar practices on its channels. Its boss and businessman, Antonio Souaré, has been in the sights of the authorities since the arrival of the CNRD junta in 2021.
Several editorial staff are currently out of work. For Lamine Guirassy, the losses are counted in billions of Guinean francs. “ The idea is to silence any dissonant voice! “, he summarizes.
Also read and listenMedia suspended in Guinea: “The idea is to turn off all dissonant voices”