Gabonese authorities must reverse their suspension of French broadcasters France 24, Radio France Internationale, and TV5 Monde and refrain from further disrupting public access to the internet, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.

Amid elections on Saturday, August 26, Gabonese authorities implemented a curfew and blocked internet access to prevent the spread of “calls for violence” and “false information,” and suspended on-air broadcasts of three French state-owned broadcasters.

The High Authority of Communication, Gabon’s media regulator, accused the broadcasters of “a lack of objectivity and balance in the treatment of information in connection with the current general elections,” according to reports by the broadcasters, which described the suspension as “temporary” but did not indicate when it would be lifted.

As of Monday evening, the broadcasters’ reporting remains inaccessible in Gabon, according to a person in Gabon who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing safety concerns.

“Gabonese authorities must lift the suspensions of France 24, Radio France Internationale, and TV5 Monde and ensure people throughout the country can freely access the internet,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator in Durban, South Africa. “Local and international media, as well as internet access, play a fundamental role in election transparency, and the public must be able to receive and share the information they need to make informed decisions.”

CPJ reached HAC member Max Olivier Obame by phone, but he declined to comment. CPJ’s calls to Gabonese Communications Minister Rodrigue Mboumba Bissawou rang unanswered.

Before the election, CPJ joined the #KeepItOn coalition in urging President Ali Bongo Ondimba and his administration to guarantee open and secure internet access during the election and raised concerns about foreign media access to cover the elections.

The results of Gabon’s election could extend the reign of the Bongo family, which has been in power for 55 years between the incumbent president and his late father, Omar Bongo.

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urges the Gabonese authorities to reverse their anachronistic decision to exclude journalists from the process of naming the members of the High Authority for Communication (HAC), the country’s media regulator. This is a dangerous step backwards in the run-up to next month’s presidential election, RSF says.

“Everything done for us without us is done against us,” said Obame Ngomo, the president of the Media Owners Organisation (OPAM), referring to the law changing how the HAC’s members are appointed, which was promulgated on 3 July.

Under the new law, Gabon’s president, the National Assembly president and the Senate president each choose three of the HAC’s nine members. This was how the National Communication Council’s nine members were chosen before it was replaced by the HAC in 2018. Until this new law took effect, Gabon’s journalists chose two of the HAC’s nine members. Now they have been reduced to the level of spectators and they fear that the HAC will just do the government’s bidding.

Gabon is moving backwards. Reducing journalists to mere spectators on crucial issues concerning the regulation of journalism is anachronistic. Allowing the authorities to appoint all of the HAC’s members opens the door to disturbing abuses and arbitrary decisions. An impartial regulator, in which debate is accepted and encouraged, should be a priority in Gabon, especially on the eve of a presidential election. We urge the authorities to reverse this dangerous reform in order to include journalists in the process of appointing the HAC’s members.

Sadibou Marong, Director of RSF’s sub-Saharan bureau

The grounds for changing the method of appointing the HAC’s members are unclear. “We met the authorities in an attempt to understand the motives for changing the law but no one wanted to take responsibility for the change,” Ngomo said.

The change to this organic law was carried out in a completely opaque manner. RSF has been told that the official gazette did not publish the new law until mid-July and that not even the HAC’s members had access to it before then.

The HAC’s new nine members were nonetheless named at the start of July and held a meeting on 12 July at which they took decisions. They issued formal warnings to three media outlets and suspended a fourth for a month. All were media outlets that support the government. They were sanctioned in response to a complaint by the leader of the opposition National Union party, who accused them of “harming the reputation of National Union leaders.”

Without journalists acting directly as safeguards, it cannot be concluded from these sanctions that the government is not manipulating the HAC for political purposes. Most of the HAC’s six new members are former journalists, but they are now pursuing political careers. How independent they are from the government is questionable.

“The political authorities have appointed people who will do as they are told when the authorities need them to sanction the media,” said Abel Mimongo, one of the two journalists who were chosen by their fellow journalists to be HAC members in June 2018. The other was Timothée Boussiengui. Their terms as HAC members ended at the start of July.

The HAC’s overhaul comes just weeks before the first round of Gabon’s presidential election on 26 August, in which Ali Bongo, the country’s president since 2009, is seeking a third term.

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Gabon’s media regulator should immediately lift its suspensions of the tri-weekly newspaper L’Aube and the weekly Echos du Nord, and give journalists the freedom to cover issues of public interest, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

On March 20, the High Authority for Communication, Gabon’s media regulator, ordered Echos du Nord to suspend publication for four months following a defamation complaint by the president of Gabon’s constitutional court, Marie-Madeleine Mborantsuo, according to news reports.

On April 10, the authority issued an order suspending L’Aube‘s publication for six months for the alleged defamation of Maixent Accrombessi, the former chief of staff to Gabonese President Ali Bongo, according to Melissa Bendome, a technical adviser at the authority, who spoke to CPJ over messaging app.

CPJ spoke with Liliane Bilogho Ndong Nang, director of government information at the prime minister’s office, in an attempt to reach Accrombessi and Mborantsuo for comment, but Bilogho declined to give their contact information.

“The suspensions of the L’Aube and Echos du Nord newspapers by Gabon’s media regulator send a chilling signal to all journalists that anything deemed undesirable by powerful people in the country may be grounds for complete censorship,” Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, said from Durban. “Journalists must be free to deliver information to the public in whatever form they see fit, without fear.”

The Echos du Nord suspension order followed the paper’s February 4 publication of an article about Mborantsuo’s increasing power in the country, according to the news website Gabon Review. Mborantsuo filed a complaint with the High Authority for Communication, and the regulator called the article “slanderous,” “vindictive,” and “outrageously acrimonious,” according to the Review.

Echos du Nord‘s weekly print publication has been suspended since March 20, according to news reports. Its website has not been updated since 2017.

L’Aube Editor-in-Chief Orca Boudiandza Mouellé told CPJ via phone on May 7 that, while the newspaper did cease publication on April 10 after the regulator’s decision was announced on Gabonese TV, they have yet to receive a formal notification of the suspension. The newspaper does not have a website, Mouellé told CPJ.

Accrombessi’s lawyer filed a complaint with the media regulator after L’Aube published a satirical text on April 1 as a joke, in which a caricatured Accrombessi spoke about looting Gabon and manipulating the president, according to Mouellé and media reports.

On April 8, L’Aube published a clarification, explaining that the April 1 article was published as satire, as seen in an image of the newspaper featured by online broadcaster Benin Web TV.

The High Authority for Communication’s suspension order also referenced an interview by L’Aube with Echos du Nord founder Désiré Ename, published on March 25, following Echos du Nord‘s suspension, in which Ename referred to the regulator with “pejorative and sarcastic expressions,” according to French daily Le Figaro.

In 2016, Echos du Nord‘s offices were raided by Gabon’s domestic intelligence agency, several of its staffers were arrested, and one was allegedly tortured during an interrogation, as CPJ reported at the time.

L’Aube was previously suspended for three months beginning in November 2018 after it published an article about Bongo’s allegedly poor health, according to the U.S. Congress-funded Voice of America.

CPJ called Tiburce Armand Nziengui Boussougou, adviser to the director of government information, who answered but declined to comment on the state of press freedom in Gabon.

Earlier this year, Gabon’s government shut down the internet and broadcasting services throughout the country following a coup attempt against Bongo, as CPJ reported at the time.

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Gabonese authorities not to restrict the flow of news and information and to guarantee the ability to journalists to work amid the turmoil following a coup attempt early yesterday morning, in which soldiers stormed into the national radio and TV station, RTG, and broadcast a call for an uprising.

The authorities quickly announced the arrest of the mutineers’ leader and said the situation was “under control.” But the Internet, which was disconnected early yesterday, had not been restored by the end of the day. RTG eventually resumed its regular programming yesterday evening.

According to the president’s office, the five journalists and technicians who were at RTG headquarters when the soldiers arrived were not allowed to leave and were forced to broadcast the communiqué read by their leader, Lt. Obiang Kelly, who identified himself as the Republican Guard’s deputy commander.

The communiqué called for a popular uprising in response to the “pathetic spectacle” offered by the country’s president, Ali Bongo, who broadcast a New Year message from Morocco in a bid to reassure the Gabonese public about his state of health and ability to run the country. Bongo has not returned to Gabon since suffering a stroke in Saudi Arabia in October and is now convalescing in Morocco.

“We condemn the use of force against journalists and the restrictions on news and information,” said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF’s Africa desk. “The restoration of order announced by the authorities must be accompanied by an effective restoration of the Internet in Gabon. In the current fluid situation, Gabonese need more than ever to have access to credible media coverage, and journalists must be able to do their job to report the news.”

Gabon is ranked 108th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is dismayed by the Gabonese media regulator’s decision to suspend a newspaper for three months and ban its editor from working for six months over an article about President Ali Bongo’s health. The sanctions are the latest example of the decline in press freedom in Gabon.

The High Authority for Communication (HAC) issued its decision in response to an article in the newspaper L’Aube headlined “Gabon on (very dangerous) autopilot.” The story asked why President Bongo’s hospitalization in Saudi Arabia for the past three weeks has not triggered article 13 of the constitution, which addresses a vacancy in the presidency.

While the HAC’s powers include the ability to suspend a newspaper, nowhere is it written that it can suspend a journalist. Gabon’s media regulator nonetheless also banned L’Aube editor Orca Boudiandza Mouelé from working for six months, in contradiction with Gabon’s international commitments, in particular with article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states the right of everyone to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds”. Only an independent judicial authority could have legitimately pronounced such a restriction on the exercise of a fundamental freedom.

In its ruling, the HAC described the newspaper’s interpretation of Gabonese law as “arbitrary.” The issue of a presidential vacancy has nonetheless been widely discussed in both the national and international media, especially as the information about Bongo’s health has not been reassuring. Several foreign media outlets claim to have had confirmation that he suffered a stroke while visiting Riyadh.

Gabon’s Media Owners Organization (OPAM) issued a statement condemning the HAC’s “mounting authoritarianism,” which has included arbitrary sanctions on three Gabonese newspapers and a French TV channel in less than six months.

In August, RSF condemned the HAC’s ban on local broadcasting by the French public TV channel France 2 for one year. The ban was reduced to three months a few days later. RSF also condemned the one-month suspension imposed on the tri-weekly Echos du Nord just because it failed to respond to a summons for questioning about an article.

“We call for the immediate lifting of these latest sanctions on a newspaper and its editor, which represent one more stage in the disturbing erosion of press freedom seen in recent months in Gabon, said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF’s Africa desk. The newly-created High Authority for Communication has suspended many media outlets since June, especially media critical of the government, the president or the president’s inner circle. This policy not only limits the freedom to inform but also hurts the country’s image.”

The HAC is a supposedly independent government offshoot that was created by government decree on 23 February to replace the National Council for Communication (CNC), for which there was constitutional provision. It has nine members, of whom seven are appointed by the government. Its president, Raphaël Ntoutoume Nkoghe, used to be President Bongo’s communication adviser and can still be seen alongside Bongo in photos on his Facebook profile.

Gabon is ranked 108th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on Gabon’s High Authority for Communication (HAC) to allow Media+ TV to resume broadcasting and condemns the disproportionate nature of the decision to suspend the TV channel for a month for refusing to receive a HAC visit.

One of Gabon’s most popular TV channels and based in Port-Gentil, its economic capital, Media+ has been unable to broadcast since 23 July, when the HAC, Gabon’s media regulator, issued its one-month suspension order.

The Gabonese media quoted the HAC has saying it ordered the suspension because of “a violation of provisions” and “the lack of respect” shown by the TV channel, which refused to receive the HAC delegation that visited Port-Gentil on 20 and 21 July.

Raphaël Ntoutoume Nkoghe, a former media advisor to President Ali Bongo who now heads the HAC, told RSF that the HAC “has the power to visit any media outlet whatsoever in order to inspect its installations” and that the attitude of those in charge at Media+ therefore constituted an obstacle to the regulator’s work.

Média+ CEO Abou Becker Ndiaye declined to comment, saying he did not “want to get into a dispute.” The TV channel has appealed against the decision to the HAC, which is to examine the appeal shortly.

“Created just a few months ago, the HAC has sent a disturbing signal to the Gabonese media by imposing this disproportionate sanction on a media outlet that refused to open its doors to a HAC visit,” said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF’s Africa desk. “We call on the HAC to allow for discussion and negotiation, so that this TV channel can reopen as soon as possible.”

Created by government order on 23 February, the HAC replaced the National Council for Communication (CNC). Unlike the CNC, for which there was constitutional provision, the HAC is a supposedly independent government offshoot with nine members, of whom three are appointed by Gabon’s president, two by the senate speaker, two by the national assembly speaker and two by the media profession.

Gabon is ranked 108th out of 180 countries for the second year running in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

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In their statement announcing the suspension on 8 September, they said the government was clearly behind the production and distribution of the bogus versions.

Presidential spokesman Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze denied this when contacted by Reporters Without Borders. “The President’s Office and the Gabonese government have never pirated any newspaper, regardless of how virulent its articles were,” he said.

“If the government is behind this, it would constitute an unacceptable act of censorship and violation of freedom of information,” Reporters Without Borders assistant research director Virginie Dangles, said. “We urge the authorities to identify those responsible for this piracy so that La Loupe and L’Aube can resume publishing without delay.”

The deception was first spotted when issue No. 193 of La Loupe was delivered to newsstands on 2 September. It was not the version produced by the weekly’s staff. The real content had been replaced and, instead of the usual criticism, it praised the government to the skies.

A new member of the production and layout staff, a suspected government infiltrator, was blamed.

The front page that L’Aube produced for publication on 8 September was headlined: “The president’s office pirates La Loupe. May you be cursed for life !!!!” The accompanying story accused President Ali Bongo’s chief of staff, Maixent Accrombessi, of orchestrating the deception.

But L’Aube‘s readers never saw this issue. Someone – the weeklies say an envoy of the president’s office – bought the entire print run from the distributor in Libreville before it hit the streets. The same person then reportedly went to Multipress, the company that prints L’Aube, and forced the staff to print a bogus issue.

Despite the 8 September announcement by the two weeklies, another fake issue of La Loupe appeared on newsstands the next morning, one that Multipress had also reportedly been forced to print.

Gabon is ranked 98th out of 180 countries in the 2014 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

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The recommendations were prepared after the government told Reporters Without Borders it wanted to modernize its media legislation and submitted a draft of the new law to Reporters Without Borders and its legal department for their comments.

The initiative was also the result of a Reporters Without Borders visit to Libreville from 6 to 9 February.

In its 11 pages of recommendations, Reporters Without Borders points out that the law in effect in Gabon since 2001 does not meet the applicable standards governing freedom of expression and media freedom, and furthermore makes no provision for online media, social networks and blogs.

Rather than amending the 2001 law, Reporters Without Borders has recommended repealing it and drafting a completely new law.

“As drafted, the proposed new law does not in any way change the spirit of the 2001 law, which is clearly unsuited to Gabon’s new media landscape, to the new democratic practices desired by the Gabonese public and media, and to international democratic standards,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“Gabon needs to draft a new law from the bottom up, one that is written with a new approach and sets an example of respect for freedom of expression and the rights of journalists, while at the same time protecting the rights of the country’s citizens.”

Reporters Without Borders emphasizes the importance of decriminalizing media offences, in other words, abolishing prison sentences for journalists convicted of defamation or insult.

Mischievous comments

After Reporters Without Borders visited Libreville, an article was posted on a Libreville website with the headline “Reporters Without Borders is going to work for the Gabonese president’s office.”

Reporters Without Borders responded positively to an invitation to go to Libreville and talk with government officials. All costs connected with the flight and stay were paid for by Reporters Without Borders. The visit did not cost the Gabonese government anything.

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