Niger admits holding journalist missing since August
Moussa Kaka vanished in Niamey on 31 August. The justice minister has now said he is detained, without saying on what charge.
Niamey — Niger's government has acknowledged that it is holding a journalist who disappeared in the capital more than a month ago, Human Rights Watch says.
Moussa Kaka went missing in Niamey on 31 August. Nothing was known of his whereabouts until 25 September, when the justice minister, Alio Daouda, told a United Nations review of Niger's rights record that Kaka had been detained for an alleged "offense" and would "answer before the courts".
The authorities have not said what he is accused of or where he is being held.
A lawyer on trial
The rights group links the case to that of Abdourahamane Lirwana, a prominent lawyer charged under the cybercrime law with "spreading data likely to disturb public order".
The charge appears to stem from a Facebook post on 12 September describing the army as divided between supporters of two former presidents. At a hearing on 6 October, prosecutors asked for a five-year sentence.
Since the coup
Human Rights Watch sets both cases against what has happened since the military took power in 2023. The junta has dissolved all political parties, suspended civil society groups, detained journalists under the cybercrime law and stripped exiled opponents of their nationality.
It continues to hold the president it overthrew, Mohamed Bazoum, and his wife, along with a former interior minister and the human rights defender Moussa Tiangari.
What the group is asking
It wants the charges against Lirwana dropped, Kaka's location disclosed and his release, and an end to the pressure on journalists and activists.
Source: Human Rights Watch, 8 October 2026.
