{"event_id":747,"external_id":"miniflux:752","fetched_at":"2026-06-11 03:52:13","id":53,"payload":{"author":"Human Rights Watch","changed_at":"2026-06-11T02:58:25.795481Z","comments_url":"","content":"<p>The remarks that led to Malian journalists Chahana Takiou and Abdramane Ke\u00efta\u2019s arrests were not extraordinary.</p>  \n\n\n\n      \n\n\n  \n  \n\n\n\n\n  \n          \n                    \n\n\n\n                  \n          Click to expand Image\n          \n\n\n\n  \n        \n  \n\n        \n                      \n      \n        \n              Chahana Takiou, Bamako, Mali, June 2026.\n                    \u00a9 Private\n          \n    \n\n\n  \n<p>During a Pan-African Media Forum event held from June 3 to 7 in Bamako,\u00a0Mali\u2019s capital, Takiou, director of the biweekly 22 Septembre, said that he\u00a0regretted that a fellow journalist was being tried under a cybercrime law instead of the press laws. He was referring to the case of Youssouf Sissoko, editor-in-chief of the weekly L\u2019Alternance, whom authorities arrested in February after he published an article criticizing Niger\u2019s military ruler. A Malian court\u00a0sentenced Sissoko in June to two years in prison.</p><p>Ke\u00efta, director of the newspaper Le t\u00e9moin\u00a0(The Witness),\u00a0commented on a recent television show that the Islamist armed group JNIM, the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, currently controls the northern city of Kidal.</p><p>In just two days, a prosecutor attached to the cybercrime unit brought cases against\u00a0both\u00a0journalists, charging Takiou on June 8 with \u201cundermining the credibility of the state through the judicial institution,\u201d and Ke\u00efta on June 9 with the \u201coffense of a regionalist nature undermining national unity and the credibility of the state,\u201d before sending them topretrial detention. Takiou\u2019s trial is set to begin on\u00a0July 27, while Ke\u00efta\u2019s trial on\u00a0August 17.</p><p>The two journalists\u2019 arrests come amid a worsening human rights situation and growing concern over Mali\u2019s shrinking civic space. Since seizing power in 2020, the military junta has\u00a0banned media outlets,\u00a0dissolved civil society organizations, restricted political activity, and targeted\u00a0journalists,\u00a0activists, and\u00a0opposition figures\u00a0through arbitrary arrests and\u00a0enforced disappearances.</p><p>The recent arrests also starkly illustrate the problem Takiou identified: authorities increasingly use cybercrime legislation to punish peaceful criticism and sidestep the protections that press laws afford journalists.\u00a0Mali\u2019s 2019 cybercrime law has long drawn\u00a0criticism for blurring the line between protecting national security and suppressing free expression by criminalizing vaguely defined online \u201cthreats\u201d and \u201cinsults,\u201d which carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison.</p><p>Journalists play a key role in informing the public and scrutinizing state action. The authorities should immediately release Takiou and Ke\u00efta and drop charges stemming from their exercise of the right to freedom of expression. The government should ensure that media professionals can work without fear of retaliation.</p>","created_at":"2026-06-11T02:58:25.795481Z","enclosures":[],"feed":{"allow_self_signed_certificates":false,"apprise_service_urls":"","block_filter_entry_rules":"","blocklist_rules":"","category":{"hide_globally":false,"id":1,"title":"All","user_id":1},"checked_at":"2026-06-11T02:58:24.703824Z","cookie":"","crawler":false,"description":"","disable_http2":false,"disabled":false,"etag_header":"","feed_url":"https://www.hrw.org/rss/news?topic=9685","fetch_via_proxy":false,"hide_globally":false,"icon":{"external_icon_id":"2af79ca747d3012a648bd7b96af36341d1241b3a","feed_id":12,"icon_id":11},"id":12,"ignore_entry_updates":false,"ignore_http_cache":false,"keep_filter_entry_rules":"","keeplist_rules":"","last_modified_header":"","next_check_at":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","no_media_player":false,"ntfy_enabled":false,"ntfy_priority":0,"ntfy_topic":"","parsing_error_count":0,"parsing_error_message":"","password":"","proxy_url":"","pushover_enabled":false,"pushover_priority":0,"rewrite_rules":"","scraper_rules":"","site_url":"https://www.hrw.org/","title":"Human Rights Watch News","urlrewrite_rules":"","user_agent":"","user_id":1,"username":"","webhook_url":""},"feed_id":12,"hash":"9be516b89fd71e75ccc0bd3bd1de7a3176dab1e72ca0b93ec5d3fd41ed0ce58e","id":752,"published_at":"2026-06-10T12:40:52Z","reading_time":2,"share_code":"","starred":false,"status":"unread","tags":[],"title":"Jailed for Calling a Fact a Fact in Mali","url":"https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/06/10/jailed-for-calling-a-fact-a-fact-in-mali","user_id":1},"source_type":"miniflux"}