{"id":6938,"date":"2012-02-01T12:22:25","date_gmt":"2012-02-01T12:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=6938"},"modified":"2012-02-01T12:22:25","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T12:22:25","slug":"two-editors-given-jail-terms-in-central-african-republic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2012\/02\/01\/two-editors-given-jail-terms-in-central-african-republic\/","title":{"rendered":"Two editors given jail terms in Central African Republic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/23a23_020112_0703_twoeditorsg1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6940\" title=\"23a23_020112_0703_twoeditorsg1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/23a23_020112_0703_twoeditorsg1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"131\" height=\"139\" \/><\/a>The convictions of two journalists in the Central African Republic over their critical coverage of a top official constitute political censorship, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, a judge in the capital, Bangui, convicted Ferdinand Samba, editor of the private weekly Le D\u00e9mocrate, on charges of defamation, insult, and incitement to hatred over a series of opinion articles dating back to September 2011 that were critical of finance minister Sylvain Ndoutinga\u00ef, according to news reports. Only the incitement charge carried a prison sentence under the country\u2019s 2005 press law, the journalist\u2019s defense lawyer, Nicolas Tiangaye, told CPJ.<\/p>\n<p>Samba, who has been imprisoned since mid-January based on a complaint filed by Ndoutinga\u00ef, was sentenced to 10 months\u2019 imprisonment and a fine of 1 million CFA francs (US$1,976), news reports said. The judge also ordered the journalist to pay 10 million CFA francs (US$19,762) in damages to Ndoutinga\u00ef and imposed a one-year suspension on Le D\u00e9mocrate.Tiangaye told CPJ that although he immediately filed an appeal upon hearing the verdict, authorities had already sealed the newspaper\u2019soffices and returned the journalist to Ngaragba Central Prison in Bangui.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Another newspaper editor, Patrick Agoundou of the pro-government La Plume, was convicted in absentia on similar charges, according to news reports. The journalist had written articles criticizing Ndoutinga\u00ef\u2019s management of public finances and had reported on allegations of abuse of power and embezzlement, local journalists told CPJ. Fearing arrest, Agoundou fled the country a few weeks ago, local journalists said.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe judge\u2019s decision to suspend Le D\u00e9mocrate for one year and the prison sentences given to Ferdinand Samba and Patrick Agoundou were politically motivated in order to silence critical voices,\u201d said CPJ Africa Advocacy Coordinator Mohamed Keita. \u201cWe call on the appeals court to reverse Samba\u2019s jail sentence and urge authorities to free Samba immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The convictions of two journalists in the Central African Republic over their critical coverage of a top official constitute political [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[699,1489],"class_list":["post-6938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","tag-africa","tag-cpj"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}