About IFEX:

News by region:

IFEX Campaigns and Advocacy:

IFEX Email Products:

Opportunities and assistance:

Alert

New military leader promises to amend press law and let RFI resume FM broadcasts

(RSF/IFEX) - During a 25 October 2005 meeting, Mauritania's new military leader, Col. Ely Ould Mohamed Vall, assured a Reporters Without Borders delegation that the new government will promote democratic press reforms during the current transition. He also said the French public radio station, Radio France Internationale (RFI), will soon be able to resume FM broadcasts in Mauritania.

Col. Vall, who heads the Military Council for Justice and Democracy, made three main commitments:

- To set up a "national commission" as soon as possible to propose press sector reforms and amendments to legislation governing the practice of journalism. Col. Vall said the prime minister and communications minister had been instructed to make proposals "in the coming week" on the commission's composition in agreement with the independent press.

- To tone down implementation of the existing press law until new legislation has been adopted. Col. Vall said the
relevant departments had been instructed that the time between submission of an application to the Interior Ministry to publish a newspaper and the receipt of authorisation "should be as short as possible." He also told Reporters Without Borders that Article 11 of the press law was "no longer important" and that he had given "instructions for this article to no longer have effect."

- To immediately re-establish RFI's FM broadcasts in Nouakchott. Col. Vall said he had ordered this to be done at once and "to return to the situation that existed when it was suspended." He added that "possible changes in the accords with RFI would be considered later."

Reporters Without Borders has registered 101 cases of government censorship of the independent press under Article 11 of the press law since its adoption in July 1991. For example, "Mauritanie Nouvelles", a newspaper that no longer exists, was censored 16 times and the weekly "Le Calame" has been censored 14 times. Reporters Without Borders has issued nearly 80 releases on press freedom violations in Mauritania since 1991.