Benin: opening of the appeal appeal against journalist Ignace Soussou

Text by: RFI Follow

Reporter Without Borders, and several civil society organizations call for the immediate release of Beninese journalist Ignace Soussou. His appeal trial is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, April 28, 2020.

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Detained for four months, this investigative journalist, collaborator among others of the Benin web Tv site, was sentenced, last December, to 18 months in prison for cyber harassment. But for RSF, "  he should never have ended up in prison  ". Not only because "he did nothing", believes the NGO, if not "relaying on social networks the words of a prosecutor made during a workshop" as a journalist, but also , because he should have been tried under the Press Code which does not provide for a prison sentence, and not according to the Digital Code, which is less protective.

"  Today, this journalist has absolutely nothing to blame himself for, he scrupulously used the expressions used by a prosecutor during a workshop, which he tweeted almost word for word. This journalist has already been in prison for nothing for four months , said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF's Africa office.

In addition, in Benin there is no custodial sentence for acts committed in the exercise of the function of journalist. However, these are indeed facts committed in the exercise of this mission. He tweeted public interest comments from a prosecutor during a workshop. He is invited to this workshop as a journalist. However, he was tried under the Digital Code, prosecuted for harassment as a cybercriminal and convicted of harassment. But three tweets repeating expressions held during a workshop cannot constitute harassment. Even if we harm his quality as a journalist, which seems improbable, but that is what has been done, even if we are at this point in the debate, he should not have been sentenced to a private sentence of freedom, which is authorized by the Digital Code, which judged him as a harassing cybercriminal.  "

RSF therefore hopes to be released at the end of its appeal trial and fears, if not, that this conviction would set a precedent and that the Digital Code, intended to combat online disinformation, would be increasingly often "  instrumentalized  " to convict journalists who have only done their information work.

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