HUMAN RIGHTS: 13 African francophone countries not respecting press freedom

Out of 52 countries due to attending the Eighth Summit of La Francophonie from 3-5 September in New Brunswick, Canada, 15 are in breach of freedom of the press, according to the watchdog body Reporters sans frontieres. The countries accused of not respecting press freedoms were named as: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Laos, Mauritania, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Chad, Togo, Tunisia, Vietnam. The statement said that although the lack of respect of press freedom was not of the same magnitude in all these countries, they were nevertheless a slap in the face of the ideal of La Francophonie, that of "liberty and respect of human rights", declared at the previous summit in Hanoi in 1997.