Dakar (AFP)
Journalists working in Senegal say they have rarely experienced as many intimidation attempts as since the start of the Sonko affair and the unrest it sparked.
The defenders of the press denounced the attacks committed according to them by the power to contain the protest.
But the pressure also came from the other side, that of the sympathizers of Ousmane Sonko, especially after the broadcast of an interview of the one who accuses him of having raped her on several occasions, reports the profession.
Mamadou Cissé, journalist for the Leral channel, said that after the broadcast of this interview, he "received insults and death threats from Senegalese and European numbers".
"Their authors accuse us of being sold and the shame of the people," he assures us.
The press is the receptacle of the passions unleashed by the complaint filed in early February by a young masseuse from a beauty salon in Dakar against Ousmane Sonko, the main opponent of President Macky Sall.
Mr. Sonko, 46, categorically refutes the masseuse's accusations and denounces a "plot" hatched to remove her from the 2024 presidential election.
The case, at the confluence of politics, sex and justice, has ignited the spirits, in a context of exasperation at the restrictions justified by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mr. Sonko's arrest on March 3 sparked riots such as Senegal had not seen in years.
The press reported as closely as possible the clashes between young people and police in the street.
Too close, for the authorities' taste.
- "Corrupted" -
Senegal occupies an honorable 47th place out of 180 in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) world ranking for press freedom.
The prefect of Dakar was however recorded ordering his troops to disperse the journalists with tear gas at the same time as the demonstrators on the way to the court taken by Mr. Sonko.
His concern, he said, was to free the public highway.
The audiovisual gendarme suspended for three days the signal of two private televisions found guilty of having broadcast "in a loop of images of violence".
And social networks have reported disturbances on the internet evoking those observed in many countries at the initiative of governments in times of crisis.
In return, demonstrators attacked the headquarters of the radio and daily Groupe Futurs Médias (GFM) of singer Youssou Ndour and the daily Le Soleil in the capital, considered close to the government.
After several days of confrontation, the authorities and civil society set out to de-escalate.
But the ardor got excited again last week when the masseuse, Adji Sarr, aged in her twenties, came out of her silence to give an interview to some media and declare that she was pregnant with the works of Mr. Sonko.
"We have received a lot of death threats and insults on social networks. They accuse us of being corrupt and of not espousing the conspiracy thesis" which would target Mr. Sonko, affirms Mamadou Diouf, journalist at the site of Dakaractu information.
- Sonko's call -
To protect its journalists, Dakaractu has reinforced the security of its premises and no longer signs the papers published on the site, he said.
Such intimidation from an opposition party or its supporters is "a first", says journalist Issa Sall, a leading figure in the Senegalese press.
"Before, the threats were more subtle or, better: it was the rant of intellectuals," he says.
Beyond the press, the case caused what the recognized defender of human rights Alioune Tine describes as "great unease", facing the possibility that the body of the woman is used for political ends or on the contrary that 'a rape complaint may not be investigated.
In a sour climate, various interlocutors admit to AFP their reluctance to speak openly about the case.
Visiting the premises of Youssou Ndour's group on Friday, Ousmane Sonko stood out from such violence and called on the authors to let the press "exercise its work freely".
"These are practices that we denounce. Media groups cannot be our adversaries," he said.
© 2021 AFP