Guinea ALERT: Journalist briefly detained for covering police interrogation

Traore Facely, a reporter of Familia FM, a privately-owned radio station was on September 24, 2008 arrested and briefly held in the custody of the Conakry division of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Guinean police.
Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent reported that Facely was held together with suspected highway robbers for an hour before being released.

The correspondent said it took the intervention of some media executives to secure the journalist’s release.
 
Facely had gone to the station to cover the interrogation of two policemen who had been detained for allegedly stealing two bags of rice.

“My only mistake was that I covered the event. The policemen did not like it, so they threw me into jail”, Facely told Famalia FM.

The Director-General of the CID in an interview said he had no knowledge of the journalist’s predicament and that the officers at the station acted on their own and not on official orders.

Media Foundation for West Africa