Chad: Imprisoned Journalist Goes on Hunger Strike, Trial Postponed

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is deeply concerned by the conditions in which the appeal trial of a Chadian publisher imprisoned for nearly six months began on Monday. Tried by a special chamber, he did not appear at his hearing and decided to go on a hunger strike.

Martin Inoua Doulguet has good reason to be worried. The editor of Salam Info , sentenced in September 2019 to three years in prison for “defamation” and “association of computer criminals”, and imprisoned for almost six months in abhorrent conditions, decided to start a strike of hunger to “protest against the various manipulations” of which his judicial file has been the subject since the beginning of the procedure.

This Monday, March 2, his appeal trial opened in “hallucinating” conditions according to one of his lawyers, Emmanuel Ravanas, who had traveled from Paris. Reached by RSF, he indicated that the hearing had been held directly “in the office of the Attorney General of the Republic” and that he had not had the opportunity to present his observations on the procedure. Initially enrolled in the first investigative chamber, the case was finally referred to a special chamber, the fourth, placed directly under the authority of the president of the Court of Appeal and in which the public prosecutor intervenes, without this change being motivated by any reason. In the absence of the accused, the case was postponed to March 12. 

“While this journalist has already been languishing for months in abominable conditions of detention and he has been sentenced to a firm prison sentence in a fabricated case, everything seems to be brought together again so that he cannot benefit a fair and equitable trial which would necessarily lead to his release, denounces Arnaud Froger, head of the Africa office of RSF.A file recovered by a special chamber, a duly authorized lawyer not authorized to speak, a hearing in the office of the Attorney General of the Republic, a harassment which pushes the journalist to put his health in danger to be heard, this situation is extremely worrying. We ask the Chadian authorities to guarantee him a fair trial so that he can be released as soon as possible ”.

Originally prosecuted for defamation by a former health minister for having relayed the arguments of a family member who accuses him of sexual assault, Martin Inoua Doulguet had already been the subject of a first trial which had not other purpose than to have him sentenced to prison. Since press law did not authorize custodial sentences for press crimes in Chad, the charges had been reclassified as an “association of computer criminals” without any evidence being presented by the public prosecutor to support charges which had not even been made by the complainant.

Concerns about the journalist’s state of health increased in December when RSF revealed that he was sleeping on the floor in a makeshift cell built by prisoners, without access to clean toilets and with limited access rights . No measures have been taken since then to enable him to benefit from decent conditions of detention .

Last week, RSF also learned that the journalist’s Facebook account had been hacked and that messages had been deleted.

Chad ranks 122 out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index established by RSF in 2019.

Copyright ©2016, Reporters Without Borders. Used with the permission of Reporters Without Borders(RSF), CS 90247 75083 Paris Cedex 02 https://rsf.org

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