Chad media goes on strike over emergency censorship
Source: Reuters
By Stephanie Hancock N'DJAMENA, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Journalists in Chad began a strike on Wednesday to protest state censorship under a six-month state of emergency imposed by President Idriss Deby's government, which is fighting a rebellion in the east. Six private newspapers will not publish over the next two weeks, while several private radio stations will observe a three-day period of "silence" during which only music and the occasional news bulletin will be broadcast. Chad's only daily newspaper, the privately owned but pro-government "Le Progres", will continue to print. "The government does not want to see certain things talked about in the press, especially matters in the east," said Yaldet Begoto Oulatar, head of publication for newspaper N'Djamena Bi-Hebdo. "So as a precaution, it's muzzling the press before it embarks on measures that it knows will be unpopular," he said. Deby, a former fighter pilot reelected in May at polls boycotted by the opposition, is using powers granted by the state of emergency last month, aimed at curbing the spread of ethnic violence from Sudan's Darfur region into eastern Chad. Advanced copies of newspapers must now be submitted before publication and are cut by the censor. Radio stations must also provide their pre-recorded material for censorship and they can be fined for live broadcasts which stray from guidelines. "We can understand being forbidden to discuss inter-ethnic conflict -- that is the reason given by the government for the censorship," said Nadjikimo Benoudjita, editor of Notre Temps newspaper and president of the Chadian Association of Editors for the Private Press. "But now we can't discuss Darfur or the conflict between rebels and government forces, or even some political topics. We are not even allowed to say that we are censured," he said. Hundreds of Chadian villagers have been killed in recent weeks in fighting between Arab and non-Arab communities, mirroring the violence across the border in Darfur. Rebels have mounted a series of attacks to seize control of towns in eastern and central Chad, before melting into the desert. N'Djamena accuses the government in Khartoum of exporting the ethnic conflict from Darfur and supporting Chadian rebels. Chad's Communications Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor, the government's spokesman, expressed surprise at the media strike during what the government has dubbed a "state of war". "During war-time, if there are discordant voices which sow doubt into the minds of citizens, they are playing the enemy's game," said Doumgor, himself a former journalist. It is the first time that censorship has been used in this was since Deby, who seized power in a 1990 coup, introduced a multi-party political system. Abdelnasser Garboa, editor of weekly paper L'Observateur, says the censorship is particularly galling as Chad was previously known for having one of Africa's most free media. "We touched on subjects journalists in other places couldn't. But if now democracy has regressed -- maybe we will return to a dictatorship," he said.
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