Media watchdog protests radio closure

The media watchdog, Reporters sans Frontieres on Tuesday protested against the three-week closure of radio FM Liberte in Chad by the country's media regulatory authority, and called for its immediate reopening.

Chad's High Council of Communication on Monday suspended the operations of the private radio until 14 March, on the grounds that it incited violence. According to the council, FM Liberte misreported a road accident that occurred on 30 January at the University of Ngaoundere in Cameroon and reported that a Chadian student was killed, the country's national radio reported on Tuesday.

Liberte FM further reported that Cameroonian nationals mistreated Chadians in Ngaoundere, 450 km north of Yaounde, after the accident. On 4 February, a day after that report, students of a local school in the Chadian capital N'djamena took to the streets, and clashed with members of the Cameroonian community living in the Chadian capital. Several people were wounded.

Chadian radio quoted the president of the media body, Emmanuel Bealoum Touade, as saying the radio violated Article 14 of the private-radio regulation code which forbids broadcasting of information that could disrupt public order.

But RSF said in a statement that the radio “only did its job”.