The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Nigerien authorities to free journalists Ibro Chaibou, Youssouf Sériba, and Oumarou Abou Kané who were remanded in southern Niger’s Kollo prison on November 3.

The three were initially arrested on October 30 and are accused of sending an invitation to a government news conference to an exile who worked for ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.

On November 3, an investigating judge in the capital, Niamey, charged six journalists with “disseminating data likely to disturb public order,” a cybercrime with a penalty of up to five years in jail, CPJ was told by their lawyer, Boudal Effred Mouloul, as well as two people with knowledge of the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisals.

The six journalists, all with privately owned outlets, are:

• Moussa Kaka, CEO, Radio Télévision Saraounia (RTS) group;
• Chaibou, newsroom manager, RTS;
• Sériba, publishing director, Les Échos du Niger news site;
• Kané, owner, Le Hérisson satirical newspaper;
• Souleymane Oumarou Brah, publishing director, La Voix du Peuple newspaper; and,
• Abdoul Aziz Idé, RTS news presenter.

Chaibou has been in detention since October 30, while the other five and an unnamed RTS driver were detained by Niamey judicial police, questioned, and released the same day, then rearrested on November 1.

On November 3, the driver was freed without charge, along with Kaka, Brah, and Aziz, who were placed under judicial supervision.

“The instrumentalization of cybercrime laws for meaningless accusations provides further evidence of Nigerien authorities’ backsliding on press freedom,” said Moussa Ngom, CPJ’s Francophone Africa representative. “Authorities in Niger must release Ibro Chaibou, Youssouf Sériba, and Oumarou Abou Kané and drop the charges against all unjustly prosecuted journalists.”

Last year, Niger’s head of state, Abdourahamane Tchiani, who overthrew the democratically elected Bazoum presidency in 2023, increased the sentences for cybercrimes, which have since been used regularly to detain journalists.

On October 29, Hamid Amadou N’gadé, a former communications adviser to Bazoum, published on Facebook a news conference invitation from the Solidarity Fund for the Safeguarding of the Homeland (FSSP), which was set up in 2023 to finance the state’s anti-terrorism fight. In the post, N’gadé said that the government was going to officially announce mandatory deductions on salaries and mobile money transfers — which it did.

N’gadé was one of several of the former president’s allies who were stripped of their nationality in 2024.

The two people with knowledge of the case told CPJ that Kaka — a veteran journalist and correspondent for Radio France Internationale (RFI) until it was banned in Niger — had received the invitation to the news conference and sent it to his colleague Chaibou, who shared it in a WhatsApp group with Sériba, Kané, and Brah, who are regular co-debaters on Saraounia TV’s weekly “Club de la presse” show, which Chaibou hosts.

CPJ’s calls to request comment from the police, FSSP, and the Ministry of Communication went unanswered.