The High Authority for Audiovisual and Communication has suspended two newspapers for three months of publication. The decision took effect from Thursday, February 2. All the directors of publications, the employers of the Togolese press, disapprove of the decision.
With our correspondent in Lomé, Peter Sassou Dogbe
Freedom was sued following a complaint by the Prime Minister for defamation. The court sentenced the newspaper to a three-month suspension and a fine of 15 million CFA francs. However, this suspension would be illegal, according to the press code. But the Court of Appeal endorsed the decision and the press boss appealed to the Court of Cassation to denounce the suspension.
The High Authority for Audiovisual and Communication (HAAC) took the lead. Médard Amétépé, the publication director is disappointed: “ Our perspective now is to seize the administrative chamber of the Supreme Court so that the decision of the HAAC is reported”.
Defamation complaint by the CEO of the Bolloré group in Lomé
Tampa-Express, a fortnightly, was also suspended following a defamation complaint by the CEO of the Bolloré group in Lomé. According to Francisco Napo-Koura, publication director of the newspaper, the Haac took a sanction without gradation: “It would have taken at least a formal notice, a warning before going to a sanction of perhaps a month”.
For Badjibassa Babaka, former journalist and reporter for Haac, it is within the prerogatives of the regulatory body. ” The first is only a decision of application, of execution of a judgment of the court of appeal. For Tampa Express, the body considered that there are cases of recidivism and therefore decided to impose a sanction.
The Togolese press bosses are flabbergasted. They believe that these excessive sanctions from the Haac aim to muzzle the entire profession.
►Also read : Togo: journalists prosecuted for contempt of authority and spreading false statements (December 12, 2021)