While World Press Freedom Day is celebrated this May 3, a ministerial decree published this Tuesday, April 22, with immediate effect, suspended the activities of all the media deemed “non -compliant” to the press code.
Of the 639 media having attempted to comply with the press code, only 258 were deemed to comply. Result: 381 press organs are today under the threat of sanctions, even closing. Some have even closed.
“For some, it looks like a settling of accounts”, Ibrahima Lissa Faye
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Bacary Seydi, secretary general of the Federation of Communication and Information Actors of Senegal (FACS), firmly denounces the decree of Minister Alioune Sall ordering the cessation of activities of 381 press companies for “non-compliance” in the press code. For him, this is a serious damage to press freedom and an unprecedented authoritarian drift since the democratic alternation of March 2024.
The coordination of press associations (CAP), supported by several unions and rights defense organizations, also denounces a serious attack on freedom of expression.
Ibrahima Lissa Faye is the president of the coordination of press associations. Joined by the DW, he denounces the measures which, according to him, have been targeting the press since the arrival of the new power.
Press companies call for the immediate cancellation of the ministerial decree, an urgent revision of the press code, which they deem obsolete.
The decision of the Minister of Communication revives concerns about the future of the Senegalese media landscape under the power of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
