Peter Mosley
Niger newspaper editor Oumarou Keita has been freed from an 18-month prison sentence over an article criticising his country's prime minister.
Keita, editor of the privately owned weekly Le Republicain - who attended a Reuters Foundation course in Abidjan in 2001 - was arrested with publisher Maman Abou on August 4 and jailed on September 1 on charges of spreading false news and libel.
Press freedom organisations denounced the sentences, which the Paris-based Reporters sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) called "absurd and grossly unfair".
The men were arrested after publishing an article accusing Prime Minister Hama Amadou of courting Iran in favour of the West and questioning whether he was paying attention to human rights or ensuring public money was handled transparently.
Niger's authorities have grown increasingly stern in their dealings with the media, banning a newspaper, barring one private radio station from broadcasting and serving a formal caution to another in the past year.
When Keita and Abou appeared before an appeals court on November 27, the prosecution called for reduced sentences of nine months, six of them suspended. Both men, who had spent nearly four months in jail, were then set free. The decision was to be confirmed by the court on December 11.
Reporters Without Borders welcomed the release, calling it "good news for press freedom in Niger." It added:
"We hope that this case is now definitely finished with and that the government of Niger will take the opportunity to finally reform the law, so that more harmonious relations can be established between the press and the authorities.”
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