Government shuts down two magazines

The government of Gabon has suspended the publication of two magazines in a move which "looks like a campaign of intimidation against the privately owned press," the French-based campaign group for press freedom, Reporters sans Frontieres, said on Tuesday.

It said that on 12 May the government's media watchdog, the National Communications Council, had ordered Misamu, which appears once every two months, to cease publication because of a dispute between the founder and current editor over who owned the magazine.

However, Reporters sans Frontieres noted that this decision followed the magazine's publication of an article about the mysterious death of an aide to Pascaline Bongo, the eldest daughter of President Omar Bongo, who is also the head of the president's office. Misamu accused a sernior finance ministry official of murdering the deceased person.

Reporters sans Frontieres said that three days later the govenment had ordered the suspension for three months of the weekly newspaper Le Temps. The government accused the newspaper of "besmirching the good name of the nation" by publishing an article which alleged that Bongo's government had "wasted more than 500 billion CFA (US $87 million)in two nights" on lavish independence day celebrations, it added.

Reporters sans Frontieres said these moves looked like "a campaign of intimidation against the privately owned press and is nothing more than a way of preventing the population from having access to more objective information and knowledge of different manoeuvres by the government."

Reporters sans Frontieres said two other newspapers, Jeunnesse Action and L'Espoir, had received final warnings from the National Communications Council this month.