Senegal readies bill on intellectual property rights
May 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
DAKAR, Senegal, 04/28 - Senegalese minister of Culture and Listed Historic Heritage, Mame Birame Diouf, has disclosed here
that the government would soon submit to parliament a bill to enhance the protection of intellectual property rights.
Speaking on the occasion of the International Day for Intellectual
Property Rights Thursday, he noted that the bill also seeks to set up a
national squad to crack down on piracy and counterfeiting.
"This fight is already bearing fruits with the customs services and the
temporary squad which are obtaining satisfactory results,
" Diouf averred.
Calm returns to Senegal city after violent clashes
May 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Tensions died down late Sunday in Senegal’s southern city of Kolda,
a day after violent clashes between police and protestors left one man
dead.
Senegal’s armed forces minister Becaye Diop, also mayor of
Kolda, met with residents to defuse the violence which followed the
funeral of 23-year-old Dominique Lopy, who died in police custody last
weekend.
Lopy had been picked up on suspicion of stealing from an official.
Diop talked with officials and youths in the home of a city elder, according to an AFP correspondent at the scene.
Several residents told AFP they blamed Lopy’s death on injuries he had suffered while in custody.
One of two civilians injured in the clashes died late Saturday, while the second was still in intensive care Sunday.
"I
will take all measures necessary to evacuate the injured (civilian)" to
Dakar, Diop told his audience which included some of Lopy’s relatives.
Addressing
young locals, he warned: "You mustn’t put yourself in a position of
confrontation with the security forces because you will lose out."
Three
police officers were injured Saturday when their vehicle overturned
while they were chasing the protestors. Local police chiefs refused to
comment on Saturday’s clashes.
In the central district of
Doumassou, where both Lopy and the latest victim of the violence lived,
the streets were quiet Sunday.
Local youths had clashed with police over this issue once before, on April 14, just after Lopy’s death was announced.
Lopy’s family said there was an autopsy report on his death but it had not been released for security reasons.
Senegal: Marching for Street Kids
May 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
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UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
20 April 2007
Posted to the web 20 April 2007
Dakar
Senegal
on Friday marked the National Day for Talibes to call attention to the
tens of thousands of children who ply the streets of the country
begging for money.
Talibe is an Arabic word
meaning "one who seeks and asks" and it also refers to street children
in Senegal who are taken in by local Islamic teachers, known as
marabouts, to study the Muslim holy book, the Koran. The children, in
return, gather money in tin cans they hold out to pedestrians and
drivers at intersections and give their coins to the teachers.
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The United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) in
2004 estimated that there are up to 100,000 child beggars in Senegal,
constituting one percent of the country’s 11.4 million people. It is
unclear how many of them are talibes.
"It is
enough to take a survey in the streets to catch a glimpse. The problem
of those children is increasing in an exponential manner," said Malick
Diagne, deputy executive director of the nongovernmental organisation
Tostan.
Tostan has organised an annual
five-day march from the capital, Dakar, to the city of Thies 70km away
to draw local and international attention to the plight of the Talibes,
culminating in the National Day for Talibes.
About
100 people began the march on Monday, holding banners and chanting
slogans to pressure the government of President Abdoulaye Wade to
improve the lives of the Talibes. Senegal’s National Assembly in 2005
passed a law against the exploitation of children as beggars, carrying
prison terms of two-to-five years and fines of up to the equivalent of
US$4,000 but so far there have been no prosecutions.
"Everyone
wants to get involved in dealing with it but it depends on the
political will," Diagne said. "The government is playing the game on
two tables. The laws are passed to satisfy the international community,
but they are not being implemented to keep the marabouts happy."
Senegal
is 95 percent Muslim and Islamic leaders have considerable political
influence in the country. Historically, Koranic schools, or daaras,
have been located in rural areas. Parents would send their children to
the schools to study Islam and in exchange the children would carry out
odd jobs for the marabouts.
But in the past 50
years the marabouts have steadily migrated to urban areas, especially
following periods of drought and economic constraint. Begging among the
children had been considered a way to learn humility. But that goal has
been corrupted, child welfare workers say.
"It
is an intolerable situation," said Boubacar Diop of the Association for
the Promotion and Protection of Youth (ASPJ). "The society, family, the
state and everyone for different reasons and levels are responsible for
this."
The family of one young adolescent,
Amadou, sent him to study with a marabout. He says the teacher treats
him well but he works hard to get money and find something to eat.
"We
study the Koran from the morning up to midday. Afterwards the kids go
out in the streets up to 3 p.m. in search of something to eat and then
resume studying, which takes us up to 4 p.m., after which time we go
back out to find something to eat," said Amadou, a pseudonym.
Diop
said one problem is that many of the Koranic teachers take on too many
students without the means to sufficiently provide for them. Child
rights advocates say certifying the Islamic teachers and paying them
regular salaries would help the situation.
Biran
Sy, a Koranic teacher in Thies, and who has benefited from Tostan
assistance, said it is with a heavy heart that marabouts send children
out to beg. "But if you do not have means of eating what will you do
otherwise?"
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Conversely, Diagne of Tostan said there are many marabouts who exploit the children to earn money.
"If
they send out about 50 pupils in the city daily ordering each to bring
back 300 CFA [about US75 cents) within a month the money collected is
the equivalent of a senior government official," he said.
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
Senegal: Journalist Sentenced to Prison for Defamation
May 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
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Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
PRESS RELEASE
20 April 2007
Posted to the web 20 April 2007
A
court in the capital, Dakar, handed a prison sentence and heavy damages
against a tabloid director on criminal defamation charges over a story
trumpeting an alleged high-profile corruption scandal, according to
local journalists and news reports.
Ndiogou
Wack Seck of the private, pro-government daily Il Est Midi was
sentenced to six months in prison and ordered to pay damages of 40
million CFA francs (US$41,000), according to the same sources. Seck was
barred from working as a journalist for three months and his paper was
banned from publication for the same period. Neither the journalist nor
a defense lawyer was present in court. Seck is now the target of an
arrest warrant.
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"We condemn the continued use of criminal
defamation laws to jail journalists for their work," said CPJ Executive
Director Joel Simon. "We reiterate our appeal to President Abdoulaye
Wade to honor his 2004 pledge to decriminalize defamation."
The
ruling stemmed from a complaint filed by state counsel Ousmane Sèye and
Alex Ndiaye, director of the private station Xew-xew FM and a Wade
supporter, in connection with a November 14, 2006 story, according to
the private daily L’Observateur. The story alleged impropriety by Sèye
and Ndiaye over their roles in the government’s February 2006 release
from prison of embattled former prime minister Idrissa Seck, according
to CPJ research. Idrissa Seck was freed suddenly and without
explanation after seven months in prison on corruption charges,
according to international news reports.
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Ndiogou Wack Seck is one of at least three
journalists harassed, prosecuted, or jailed for stories linked to the
ex-prime minister scandal, according to CPJ research. In 2005, police
summoned veteran political commentator Abdou Latif Coulibaly and
several other journalists over alleged ties to Seck. In February 2006,
director Moustapha Sow of the private newspaper L’Office was sentenced
to prison and jailed four months later over a story linked to the
scandal. He was paroled after two weeks in prison.
Senegalese
authorities have continuously used a provision of the Senegalese penal
code to prosecute defamation matters, despite a 2004 presidential
pledge to ban criminal sanctions for press offenses, according to CPJ
research. Last month, two journalists with the private daily Walf
Grand-Place were handed suspended prison terms on defamation charges
over a story on a consumer complaint against a car dealership.
CPJ
is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to
safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.cpj.org
In Senegal, ruling party official said to threaten radio staff
May 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
New York, April 20, 2007—Critical comments made during a radio
call-in program Wednesday led a ruling party politician and his
supporters to threaten staffers at a private radio station in the town
of Mbacké, 105 miles (168 kilometers) east of the capital Dakar,
according to local journalists and media reports. The politician denied
making any threats.
Moustapha Cissé Lô and a dozen supporters came to Radio Disso FM in
response to an anonymous caller’s comments during a call-in show
devoted to the June parliamentary election. Station management met with
the group after a tense, 45-minute standoff, during which the
politician and his supporters clamored outside.
Lô, a candidate of the ruling PDS party, threatened to harm any
journalist who mentioned his name, and he warned that he would “send
vandals to ransack your radio,” Station Director Ibrahima Benjamin
Diagne said in a prepared statement. Lô, who is also a member of the
government’s Council of the Republic, denied threatening anyone,
according to private daily L’Observateur.
Lô and his supporters pressed Diagne to reveal the name and telephone
number of the caller, but the director refused, according to news
reports. The group left when Diagne summoned police. Diagne told CPJ he
later received numerous threatening phone calls from Lô and his
supporters.
“We condemn this attempt to intimidate Radio Disso staff—something that
is out of step with Senegal’s democratic tradition,” said CPJ Executive
Director Joel Simon. “We call on the authorities to investigate this
matter immediately and to prosecute those responsible.”
The Senegalese Syndicate of Information and Communication Professionals
has also condemned the threats. The station filed a complaint with the
police, Diagne told CPJ. L’Observateur quoted
Lô as saying that he had filed a counter-complaint demanding the
closure of the station and 200 million CFA francs (US$415,000) in
damages.
Diagne, 2003 winner of Radio France Internationale’s best radio report
award, is also a former reporter for the leading independent daily Wal Fadjri.
The station, which was founded in 2005, is owned by an influential and
apolitical Muslim cleric in Mbacké, according to local journalists.
Cry over media crack down in Senegal
May 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
afrol News, 20 April - Press
freedom guards have raised alarms against a wave of media crack downs
in Senegal, one of Africa’s biggest democracies where critical and
independent journalists seem to be threading along a bumpy path.
Of
late, Senegalese journalists join their colleagues in other African
countries to live with fears of threats – mostly legal or political.
Press freedom activists frown upon what they call “two damning threats
on independent journalism and free expression” in the country: threat
on the life of a radio journalist and the sending of a newspaper
director to jail for slander.
Gabriel Gbaglo, the Regional Director of International Federation of
Journalists (IFJ), illustrates the incidents as “indications of the
hostility of Senegalese officials towards a free and independent
press.”
The Director of a pro-government daily newspaper, ‘Il est midi’ (It’s
mid-day), Ndiogou Wack Seck, was convicted by the Correctional Court of
Dakar to serve six months in jail for slandering two officials close to
President Abdoulaye Wade.
The court also fined Mr Seck to pay CFA 40 million as damages to the
plaintiffs, state lawyer Ousman Sèye and Alex Ndiaye. Both the Director
and his paper were ordered to disappear from the media market for three
months.
The paper was dragged to court for writing an article on 14 November
2006, accusing Mr Sèye and Mr Ndiaye of accepting bribes from the
former jailed Prime Minister, Idrissa Seck, during the period of
negotiation to free him.
Mr Seck, the current Mayor of Thies, spent seven months in jail after
he was sacked as Prime Minister in April 2004. The government accused
him of being corrupt.
Senegalese union of journalists raised alarms against the judgment,
expressing worry as to why anti-press freedom laws should remain in the
country’s law book.
The heavy sentence on ‘Il est midi’ and its Director followed a raid on
Radio Disso FM by Moustapha Cissé Lô, the leader of the ruling party
and member of the council in Central Senegal.
According to the Director of Radio Disso, Ibrahima Benjamin Diagne, Mr
Lô who was flanked by 10 young men stomped the station’s offices late
Wednesday evening to lodge a complaint about an aired programme some
hours ago. During the said programme, a caller expresses how the
inclusion of Mr Lô on the list of ruling party line up for the 3 June
legislative polls has offended him.
Mr. Lô reportedly threatens the entire staff of the station with death
any time his name was mentioned on Radio Disso. He also threatens to
send thugs to loot the station.
The National Union of Media Professionals of Senegal (SYNPICS) asked
the entire media fraternity in the country snub all event and
activities of Mr Lô. SYNPICS is also preparing to file a civil suit
against the politician so that the case serves as deterrent to others.
© afrol News
Democracy in Paris - Episode 1
May 6, 2007 | Leave a Comment
