RSF expresses concern over beating of journalist

Reporters sans frontieres (RSF) expressed concern on Wednesday about an attack against a journalist by activists of the ruling Parti democratique senegalais (PDS) in the southern Senegalese town of Velingara. In a letter, RSF asked PDS Deputy Secretary-General Idrissa Seck to condemn the act and call on the party’s members and sympathisers to be calm. RSF Secretary-General Robert Menard said it was the party leaders’ duty to ensure the safety of journalists covering PDS activities in the run-up to legislative elections to be held on 29 April. According to information obtained by RSF, the correspondent of a private daily, ‘Sud Quotidien’, was going on Monday to interview a local PDS official when about a dozen people reportedly linked to another PDS politician blocked his path and began stoning him. The journalist, Moussa Diop, had to take refuge in his car. All his windows were broken. According to RSF, President Abdoulaye Wade, who was visiting the area, told a local party official that he would pay for repairs to the car. Diop told RSF that there was in-fighting within the local chapter of the PDS. RSF recalled that the Velingara correspondent of another private newspaper, Wal Fadjri, was attacked in March by PDS militants who went to his home to protest against his coverage of dissensions within the party.