Senegal: hand-picked media, a political choice?

The official list of media outlets in compliance with the Press Code was published on Tuesday December 3, only 112 files were validated out of the 380 submitted in Senegal.

In his speech, the Minister of Communication explained that the rejected media would no longer be able to print or broadcast.

A political selection for some media owners.

For Mamadou Ibra Kane, of the Comité des éditeurs et diffuseurs de presse au Sénégal, the government has no business deciding which media outlets are legal and which are not.

He believes that press freedom in the country is threatened by this selection.

The director of 7TV, Maïmouna Ndour Faye, also absent from the list, speaks of an attempt to liquidate the private press and wants to take legal action for abuse of power.

Alioune Tine, of the Think Tank Afrikajom Center, calls on the authorities to engage in dialogue and not close down any media.

“Above all, don’t make the mistake of creating victims of democracy, like the previous regime,” he urges in a tweet.