{"id":18203,"date":"2023-03-07T12:39:56","date_gmt":"2023-03-07T12:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/togo\/politique\/togo-journalists-ferdinand-ayite-and-isidore-kouwonou-summoned-over-insult-false-news-allegations"},"modified":"2023-03-07T13:19:55","modified_gmt":"2023-03-07T13:19:55","slug":"togo-journalists-ferdinand-ayite-and-isidore-kouwonou-summoned-over-insult-false-news-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/togo\/politique\/togo-journalists-ferdinand-ayite-and-isidore-kouwonou-summoned-over-insult-false-news-allegations","title":{"rendered":"Togo journalists Ferdinand Ayit\u00e9 and Isidore Kouwonou summoned over insult, false news allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Togo. <\/strong><\/span><b>Accra, March 6, 2023\u2013Togolese authorities should drop all legal proceedings against journalists Ferdinand Ayite\u0301 and Isidore Kouwonou and allow them to work free from harassment or threat of arrest, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Both journalists have been summoned to the country\u2019s High Court in the capital city of Lome\u0301 for a trial beginning on Wednesday, March 8, according to news reports, court documents reviewed by CPJ, and the journalists\u2019 lawyer Elom Kpade, who spoke to CPJ by phone.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities allege that Ayite\u0301, publication director of the privately owned L\u2019Alternative newspaper, insulted public authorities in the outlet\u2019s reporting, and that Kouwonou, the newspaper\u2019s editor-in-chief, assisted in that alleged offense.<\/p>\n<p>The court documents cite sections of Togo\u2019s penal code relating to criminal insult, punishable with up to two years in prison and a fine of 1 million West African francs (US$1,619); distributing false news, which carries up to two years and a fine of 2 million francs (US$3,238); and authoring false news, which carries up to three years and a fine of 3 million francs (US$4,858).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTogolese authorities should immediately cease their legal harassment of journalists Ferdinand Ayite\u0301 and Isidore Kouwonou and allow them to work freely,\u201d said Angela Quintal, CPJ\u2019s Africa program coordinator, in New York. \u201cJournalistic commentary on issues of public interest should never be criminalized, and the summonses issued to these journalists should be scrapped at once.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The case stems from an online broadcast by L\u2019Alternative in late 2021, which Ayite\u0301 and journalist Joel Egah discussed corruption allegations involving two government ministers and accusations that they had manipulated the public, according to those news reports. Egah died from a heart attack in March 2022.<\/p>\n<p>In December 2021, police arrested Ayite\u0301 and Egah over that broadcast; Kouwonou was also summoned by police that month.<\/p>\n<p>The court documents allege that both Ayite\u0301 and Kouwonou published and distributed \u201cfalse news\u201d on social media that was liable to \u201cdisrupt public peace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Section 172 of Togo\u2019s press code says that offenses involving journalists should be handled by the communication regulator, but Section 156 says that journalists who \u201cused social networks as a means of communication\u201d to commit such offenses are instead \u201cpunished in accordance with the common law provisions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>CPJ called prosecutor Mawama Talaka for comment, but no one answered.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pour plus d&rsquo;informations et d&rsquo;analyses sur la <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/togo\">Togo<\/a>, suivez <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Togo. Accra, March 6, 2023\u2013Togolese authorities should drop all legal proceedings against journalists Ferdinand Ayite\u0301 and Isidore Kouwonou and allow them to work free from harassment or threat of arrest, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. Both journalists have been summoned to the country\u2019s High Court in the capital city of Lome\u0301 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":18202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,10],"tags":[36,49,50],"class_list":["post-18203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politique","category-toutes-les-actualites","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-togo","tag-togo"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Togo journalists Ferdinand Ayit\u00e9 and Isidore Kouwonou summoned over insult, false news allegations - Togo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Accra, March 6, 2023\u2013Togolese authorities should drop all legal proceedings against journalists Ferdinand 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