Prosecutors in Niger seek five years for a lawyer over a Facebook post
Human Rights Watch says the case, and the unexplained detention of a veteran journalist, show the military government tightening its hold on what can be said.
Niamey — Prosecutors in Niger have asked a court to jail a lawyer for five years over a post on Facebook, in what Human Rights Watch (HRW) describes as part of a tightening grip on free expression under the country's military rulers.
The lawyer
Abrourahamane Lirwana was summoned on 21 September and charged under Niger's cybercrime law with "spreading data likely to disturb public order".
According to HRW, the charge is linked to a Facebook post of 12 September in which he described the army as divided between factions loyal to two former presidents, Mahamadou Issoufou and Mohamed Bazoum. At a hearing on 6 October, prosecutors asked for a five-year prison sentence.
The journalist
HRW also raises the case of Moussa Kaka, director of Radio Télévision Saraounia and a former correspondent for Reporters Without Borders. He went missing in Niamey on 31 August.
His family had no word of him until 25 September, when the justice minister, Alio Daouda, said during a United Nations review of Niger's human rights record that Kaka was being held over an alleged offence. The authorities have not said where he is or what he is accused of.
The wider picture
The army has governed Niger since 2023. HRW says the authorities have since dissolved all political parties, suspended civil society groups, detained journalists under the cybercrime law and stripped exiled opponents of their nationality.
The former president, Mohamed Bazoum, and his wife remain in detention. So do the former interior minister Hama Amadou Souley and the activist Moussa Tiangari, the organisation says.
This report is based on a statement by Human Rights Watch, via AllAfrica. The court had not ruled when it was written.
