The High Authority for Audiovisual and Communications has suspended the publication of two newspapers for three months. The decision came into effect on Thursday 2 February. All publishing directors, and employers of the Togolese press, do not agree with this decision.
Liberté sued for defamation after the Prime Minister’s complaint. The court sentenced the newspaper to a three-month suspended sentence and a fine of 15 million CFA francs. According to the press code, however, this suspension would be unlawful. But the Court of Appeal upheld the decision and the press officer appealed to the Court of Cassation to have the suspension lifted.
The Higher Audiovisual and Communications Authority (HAAC) has taken the lead. Médard Amétépé, Director of Publications, is disappointed: “Our perspective now is to fill the Administrative Chamber of the Court of Cassation so that the HAAC’s decision can be announced.”
The twice-weekly Tampa Express was also suspended after the CEO of the Bolloré Group filed a defamation lawsuit in Lomé. According to Francisco Napo-Kour, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Haac accepted the sanction without gradation: she accepted at least one caveat, a warning of a sanction of perhaps a month.”
For Badjibassa Babaki, a former journalist and Haac reporter, this is a matter for the regulator. “The first is just a decision on the application, the enforcement of the Court of Appeals judgment. In the Tampa Express case, the agency recognized the existence of recidivism and imposed sanctions.