Journalist arrested for implicating president's family in scandal

In a letter to President Lansana Conté, RSF protested the arrest of the weekly "L'Aurore"'s publication director. "Legal procedures are casually held up to ridicule in this affair," stated Robert Ménard, the organisation's secretary-general. "Journalists accused of violating the press law are granted twenty days before being heard, according to Guinean law. The law also grants them the option of declining to reveal their sources," he recalled. RSF called for the journalist's immediate release. According to information collected by RSF, on 29 January 2002, Alcoumba Diallo, founder and publication director of the weekly "L'Aurore", was arrested by security forces and taken to the Kaloum Police's third mobile station. He was interrogated about his sources by Commander Soumah, President Conté's aide-de-camp. This followed the publication of an article in the newspaper's 11 to 15 January issue which reported that some of the National Navy's ships are owned by the president's family. RSF recalled that three journalists were arrested in Guinea in 2001. Two of them were sentenced to several months' imprisonment for criticising senior state officials.