Many readers like us were quite surprised to see that « Le Quotidien » is not present in the list of media recognized by the State of Senegal, or rather the Pastef State. The Minister of Communication engaged in a unilateral exercise, of which only autocrats have the secret, of setting up a platform for the identification or certification of media without any form of consultation with the stakeholders concerned in the first place. Both Appel and the Council of Broadcasters and Press Publishers of Senegal (Cdeps) contested the form and substance this vicious initiative from the beginning. Without any consultation, they wanted us to submit data on a tool with supporting documents that the majority of media did not have. As proof, a valid tax clearance was required at the time when all the media were in dispute with the tax authorities with blocked accounts. Financial statements were also requested, and everyone was free to provide all the accounting paperwork required.
Read the column – To the democratic Malians
I will not dwell on all the technical malfunctions of the platform set up by the Ministry of Communication to invite the media to register. We can ask people to comply with a rule, but if we are not able to set up a serious tool so that the bodies register without the intervention of the Director of Communication and technical support… We could not be more ridiculous or at least in search of blood to finish with the media. This shows the shortcomings of this whole approach. We knew that the minister had his list of « acceptable » media already drawn up, he will not hesitate in his outing to have in his sights as a sanction the impossibility for media considered « illegal » to collaborate with state structures or to have access to the advertising orders of all state detachments. The waterboarding of the media will therefore never end, I pity the women and men of the media of this country.
Before all this media hype and sterile noise, he could have consulted his departments on the files submitted by the media as part of the procedures for allocating aid to the press. He could have realized that he already had, at the level of the commission in charge of this file, a gold mine of information on the economic activity of the media, their editorial orientations and the necessary information on their structuring. I can talk about it, having completed this procedure the last four years. But, that would be asking him to do his job well.
Like any cowardly crime, Minister Sall will not have the courage to sign it alone, being supervised by a series of obligated ones. Disappointing to see the Cored or the National Commission of the Press Card sign this fratricidal crime. It is a list that he will then circulate in the editorial offices and on social networks to continue in his logic of adversity. We cannot do more in the ridiculous, in the arbitrary and in the desire to silence voices than to want to stick the label of illegality to media that have been making the living history of this country for decades through their professionalism, their rigor, their credo of conformity of facts and objectivity in analyses. Maïmouna Ndour Faye, also stamped with the infamous stamp of “illegal media”, will shout at the Cdeps press conference yesterday her love for the profession of journalism and her logic of never compromising on her principles. Her approach is noble, especially since we are evolving in a corporation where it is difficult to stick together and make common cause.
Read the column – Madiambal, a general does not desert
Minister Sall is trying on the clothes of Lady Stasie, armed with her censorship scissors to open a new front with the media or I must say some of them. After the tax pressure, the unilateral terminations of contracts, the refusal to pay advertising invoices and services provided, the publication of this list of media recognized by the State according to their compliance with the Press Code is a new step in an effort to muzzle the press and weaken all platforms where opposing voices can be heard. Minister Sall has just signed a totally illegal act, in no way in accordance with the Constitution of Senegal and the Press Code. The Cdeps has the right to challenge this act at the level of the Senegalese courts for abuse of power and we will spare no effort in this fight at the level of Le Quotidien.
Read the column – Get fishing out of troubled waters
Senegal was a paradise of democracy, freedom of opinion and press, we can understand that this cannot pass in the head of a fellow citizen who vegetated on the beaches of Marbella before settling in Paris and setting a mobile phone business there, to end up being propelled by breaking and entering or by the magic of politics in our Parliament then to a government station. Our support goes to all the media actors who pay the price of the arbitrariness of the State of Senegal. We have all been sold a systemic rupture, but for the moment this rupture is synonymous with gagging the press, reducing freedoms and attacking the Senegalese democratic model. For us, times are hard with everything it takes to suffocate us economically and throw us into popular vengeance. I tragically remember the lines of Kathryn S. Olmsted’s book entitled The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler. She showed that the bosses of the organs that carried Hitler, will have been the first victims of the enterprise of muzzling the press under the Third Reich. It is tragically similar to the Senegalese case. I can only laugh when it is Alioune Sall who begged for interviews from reporters and cameramen in the aisles of the Senegalese Parliament, who wants to be the executioner of an entire corporation.
When men say no, they stand. You will have in front of you free men, upright in their boots, in love with Senegal and above all who will not give in. Scissors in your hands, sew your veil of censorship as you see fit Mr. Sall. I remain motivated by the words of our founder and first supporter, Madiambal Diagne. This newspaper will be published until our last shirt. It is a question of principle, of freedom and it is a certain idea of Senegal that it carries. This, Minister Sall, promoter of censorship and executioner of the media, will never be able to understand.
By Serigne Saliou DIAGNE – General Administrator