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Alert

Minister's loyalists assault journalist, threaten him with death

(MFWA/IFEX) - Najib Sagna, a reporter with "Walf Grand Place", a privately-owned Dakar-based daily newspaper, was reportedly attacked by four assailants including a relative of Madam Coumba Gaye, deputy minister of Justice and Human Rights on the morning of 6 July 2010.

The assailants physically attacked Sagna at about 11:45 GMT, while he was on his way to work.

The Media Foundation for West Africa's (MFWA) correspondent in Senegal reported that the attack followed an article Sagna wrote about Madam Gaye in the 5 July edition of the newspaper that the assailants were not pleased with.

The correspondent said the article with the headline: "The little Secrets of the little Minister", said that Madam Gaye had a son with another Minister of State in the current government. The article further alleged that the deputy minister had to cut short her studies because of the pregnancy.

The deputy minister declined talking to the journalist before the story appeared in the newspaper.

Sagna told the correspondent that he recognised two of his assailants. "They were Ndeye Gaye, the minister's sister, and Baye Ndoye, the one who held a microphone during a demonstration the deputy minster organised last week", he stated.

The reporter said Ndeye Gaye told him that he had signed his "death warrant" for writing an article on her sister.