Senegal’s Media Outlets Stage Blackout Day Over Press Freedom Concerns

In Senegal, Media organizations have staged a blackout day to protest a government crackdown which they say targets them directly and is aimed at curtailing press freedoms in the West African country.

Television screens went blank on the main TV stations such as TFM, ITV and 7 TV, and radio outlets such as RFM and iradio were silent. Most of the daily newspapers did not publish Tuesday’s editions, except for the government-owned Le soleil and the private pro-government WalfQuotidien and Yoor Yoor Bi.

The move comes as tensions have been rising between media organizations and the government, triggering international concerns over press freedoms in one of Africa’s most stable democracies.

Separately, Senegal’s main media companies have accumulated massive debt over the years, threatening the sector’s economic survival.

The Senegalese Council of Press Distributors and Publishers, an organization representing both private and public media companies, claimed that the government had frozen banks accounts belonging to the media outlets, allegedly for owing back taxes, “seized production equipment” and “unilaterally and illegally terminated advertising contracts.”

In June, Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, who took office earlier this year, denounced what he described as a “misappropriation of public funds” in the media industry.

International watchdog Reporters Without Borders says cases of police brutality against journalists and arrests of government critics have also increased in Senegal over the past few years, according to the international watchdog, which has urged Senegalese authorities to safeguard press freedoms.

The group says Senegal fell from the 49th to 94th place on its World Press Freedom Index, an annual ranking of countries that assesses multiple factors, including a reporter’s ability to work and security, in the last three years.

They further stated that Journalists are not sufficiently protected when doing their job and politicians are not playing their role in the matter with political forces jeopardizing the right to inform and be informed.