By RFIPalled on 21-08-2019Modified on 21-08-2019 at 10:31

Two days after the summoning of Souleymane Diallo by the judicial police, the debate on the decriminalization of press offenses is revived in Guinea. At the end of his audition, the director of Lynx FM radio was placed under judicial control. It is pursued in particular for the dissemination of data likely to disturb public security through a computer system. Here, the complaint is based on the Cybersecurity Act and not on the Press Act, passed in 2010.

Since 2010, it is the first time that the Dean of the private press, Souleymane Diallo, is placed under judicial control. But this is not the first time a journalist has been prosecuted on the basis of the Cybersecurity Law.

A law that stifles the job of journalist, says Sanou Kerfalla Cissé. The President of Urtelgui, the Union of Television and Free Radio Stations of Guinea , reminds that nine years ago, an organic law was adopted. It decriminalizes press offenses but it is not applied.

" The journalist has no place in gendarmeries, insists Sanou Kerfalla Cissé. The journalist has no place with a judicial police officer. When there is a press crime, they simply want to muzzle the press. "

There is no attempt to intimidate journalists by the authorities, says Amara Somparé, the Minister of Communication.

" Judicial review is not a sanction, to my knowledge," says the minister. Freedom of the press is a sacrosanct principle. This has never been called into question by any procedure whatsoever. Whether it is the law on freedom of the press or the law on cybercrime, rights and duties are set for citizens and for media professionals. "

In its 2017 report, Amnesty International recalled that under the Cybersecurity Act, the disclosure of certain data " is tantamount to treason or espionage offenses, which are punishable by life imprisonment ".

► See also: RSF worries about freedom of the press in Africa

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