Dakar — The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Nigerien authorities to swiftly and unconditionally release journalists Hamid Mahmoud, Massaouda Jaharou, and Mahaman Sani, with the privately owned Sahara FM radio station, after they were arrested for the second time in four days on May 10 for broadcasting information about the country's military cooperation with Russia.
"The repeated arrests of Hamid Mahmoud, Massaouda Jaharou, and Mahaman Sani deepens a pattern of censorship on security-related subjects," said Moussa Ngom, CPJ's Francophone Africa representative. "Nigerien authorities must stop criminalizing journalism, immediately release all three of the Sahara FM journalists, and allow them to return to their newsroom."
On May 7, police officers in the northern city of Agadez initially arrested and questioned the journalists about their reporting that day on an alleged breakdown in cooperation between Niger and Russia, according to a person close to the case, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, and a statement by Aïr Info Agadez, the online news site owned by Sahara FM's parent company. An investigating judge released them without charge on May 9, but they were re-arrested the next day.
The journalists' reporting was based on a May 5 report by the privately owned, France-based news outlet LSi Africa. "They were questioned on who asked them to relay this information," the person close to the case said.
On May 14, Agadez gendarmerie transferred the three journalists to the research brigade of the gendarmerie of Niamey, Niger's capital.
Following a coup in 2023, CPJ and other rights groups raised concerns about press freedom in the country. In April 2024, Idrissa Soumana Maïga, editor of the private newspaper L'Enquêteur, was detained for more than two months for reporting on allegations that Russian agents had placed listening devices in public buildings. Military authorities have also temporarily suspended or banned several international media outlets, including for coverage of the long-running jihadist insurgency in the country.
CPJ's calls for comment to the police in Agadez and the gendarmerie's public number went unanswered.
