Backers of Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo have destroyed opposition newspapers seized from newsagents and street vendors, claiming on Thursday that the publications are inciting rebellion.
A spokesperson for a group calling itself the Young Patriots, which seized the newspapers in Abidjan on Wednesday, said it is ”keeping a tight eye on making sure these newspapers don’t go on sale”.
Idriss Ouattara said certain newspapers in the pro-government region of the divided West African state are backing rebels who held the north of the country.
Security sources said the Young Patriots operated in groups of 12, attacking newsagents, kiosks and street vendors, tearing up and destroying opposition newspapers.
A European-born bookstore owner in Abidjan, the country’s economic capital, said he was threatened with killing and rape.
”It was verbal brutality, but it didn’t need much for it to turn physical,” he said.
Twenty newspapers are published in Côte d’Ivoire, with a total circulation of 200 000, of which more than 70% is in Abidjan.
The incidents occurred as the National Press Commission, asked by the army general staff to intervene, warned newspapers about the way they are treating information, especially in articles about the army.
The commission, a regulatory body, criticised certain newspapers for allegedly seeking tacitly to undermine the cohesion of the armed forces and damage the progress achieved in pacifying the country.
A ceasefire is operating between government forces and rebels who took the north of the country in a September 2002 insurgency.
A United Nations mission has been entrusted with disarming fighters and reconciling the former rebels with the Gbagbo regime.
Rebel leaders were last year brought into a transitional government under a peace pact signed in France in 2003.
The Young Patriots had earlier tried to prevent distribution of the newspapers by demonstrating in front of Edipresse, a company with exclusive distribution rights, said manager Francois Vezy.
Similar incidents were reported this week in the provincial towns of Gagnoa and Abengourou, he said.
The National Union of Journalists is set to meet editors of targeted newspapers to decide what action to take.
The Paris-based journalists’ rights group Reporters sans Frontières spoke on Thursday of a ”campaign of censorship, destruction and intimidation spreading in Côte d’Ivoire”. — Sapa-AFP