Photographer assaulted by police, RSF says

The Paris-based journalist watchdog Reporters sans frontieres (RSF) has written to Security Minister, Ahmadou Camara, expressing its concern over a serious assault on a photographer carried out by members of the Guinean police force in the capital Conakry on 4 December.

RSF secretary-general, Robert Menard wrote: "He (Mamadou Cellou Diallo) is not the first journalist to have been sujected to such treatment. We ask that all necessary steps are taken to put an end to barbaric treatments meted out by the security forces."

Diallo, who works for the private press group Le Lynx-La Lance, was reportedly the victim of a violent attack by members of the Brigade speciale de protection et d'intervention (BPSI), acting under orders from their commander, Amadou Camara (no relation to the Minister). Camara threatened to kill Diallo, who had been reporting the students' strike at Conakry University, if he published his name or photograph, RSF said. Le lynx-La Lance lodged a formal complaint against Camara last week for the attack during which Diallo received "at least 25 blows from a truncheon and strap." The police also took his watch and some 40,000 CFA (US $50), RSF added.