It has not been a good week for press freedom in Africa: three journalists in Morocco have been given jail sentences; an Algerian court has handed down sentences to a journalist and an editor, and an Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporter in Equatorial Guinea has been detained.
In the Morocco case, a magazine was shut down and three of its journalists given jail sentences for showing insufficient respect for the king and criticising the monarchy, the MAP news agency reported.
The three, who worked for the weekly Al Hayat Al Maghribia, were sentenced by a court in Oujda in the east of the country on Monday. They were prosecuted after the magazine published an interview in May with Mohamed al-Abbadi, a member of the governing council of the country’s chief Islamist organisation, Al Adl Wal Ihssane, which is tolerated but not officially recognised.
Abbadi, who was tried with the journalists, was given a prison term of two years. All four defendants were fined 10 000 dirhams (about R7 300).
Mustapha Qachnini, director and editor of the magazine, was given a two-year term, while Miloud Boutriki and Abdelaziz Jellouli, who carried out the interviews, received 18 months each.
Meanwhile, an Algerian court convicted a journalist and his editor on Tuesday for ”offending the chief of state” with an article about an alleged real estate scam by officials close to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, their newspaper said.
Farid Alilat, editor of the daily Liberte, was given a four-month suspended sentence and a 100 000 dinar (about R9 000) fine. Reporter Rafik Hamou was fined the same amount, and the newspaper was ordered to pay two million dinars (about R180 000).
Meanwhile AFP correspondent in Equatorial Guinea was detained without reason on Monday.
Rodrigo Angue Nguema, a citizen of the former Spanish colony, spent the night in a police station in the capital Malabo, his wife said in Libreville.
The media lobby group Reporters Sans Frontières said in its 2003 annual report that ”the press is still not free in Equatorial Guinea”. — Sapa-AFP