Guinea : Ten journalists arrested for participation in unauthorized demonstration
On Thursday, January 18, a dozen journalists from the private press were arrested in Conakry. These media professionals had gathered at the Maison de la Presse in Conakry in response to a call to protest from the Union of Press Professionals in Guinea.
The unauthorized demonstration in Greater Conakry aimed to « demand the release of the airwaves of jammed media and the restoration of access to social networks in Guinea », according to Sékou Djamal Pendessa, the secretary-general of the Union of Press Professionals in Guinea. The protest was planned in the Guinean capital and the prefectures of Coyah and Dubréka, peripheral cities of Conakry.
Before the scheduled protest, the Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralization announced that the government would not tolerate public disorder, especially during a period when the country had just experienced one of its worst crises following the explosion of the national hydrocarbons depot.
Early in the morning, a mixed force composed of police, gendarmes, and military personnel was dispatched to various roundabouts in the capital where sit-ins were planned.
Faced with the militarization of the targeted areas for the organization of this demonstration, the union and its supporters decided to conduct their protest within the premises of the Maison de la Presse, located in the Minière neighborhood in the commune of Dixinn.
It was at this location that gendarmes were deployed just before 10 :00 a.m. They identified about ten journalists in the vicinity and promptly arrested them. They spent the night in a gendarmerie prison in Dixinn and are expected to face the prosecutor on Friday.
