Police in Chad have released the former head of an independent radio station, Tchanguiz Vatankhah, who was detained for more than three weeks for his political activities, a media body said on Monday.
Vatankhah, who is president of the Chad Union of Privately Owned Radio Stations (URPT), was freed last Friday, said a URPT statement that welcomed the move but added that “his health has deteriorated badly in jail”.
He was arrested on April 28 after signing a text that called for the postponement of a May 3 election in which President Idriss Déby Itno was returned to office, according to Reporters sans Frontières (Reporters without borders — RSF).
“The UPRT hopes that such obstacles to the freedom of expression … are never repeated,” the union said in Monday’s statement.
Vatankhah, of Iranian origin, had begun a hunger strike two weeks before his release to have access to a lawyer, and refused medication for his diabetes to protest against the conditions of his detention.
An official at the Central African country’s human rights ministry, who asked not to be named, said that Vatankah had given a written undertaking to step down from his UPRT post and no longer engage in political activity before he was freed.
He sought refuge in Chad in 1976 and settled at Moissala in the south of the country, where he founded a local station, Radio Brakoss, with an emphasis on defence of the environment.
He was held briefly in September on grounds advanced by the authorities that he had broadcast “tendentious” programmes.
He was fired by the station and was the subject of an arrest warrant issued in November but not carried out at the time.
Déby was returned for a third term in office in the election early this month with, according to official figures, 77% of the vote. — Sapa-AFP