TAEF stands in full support of media in Guinea

30 Novembre 2017

LIBREVILLE, November 30 (Infosplusgabon) -  The African Editors Forum (TAEF)  yesterday standed in full support of media in Guinea, particularly the private radio stations who embarked in unprecedented protest action, in a fight for media freedom.

TAEF praises and is fully behind the action by 40 radio stations - including some with the highest listenerships - who interrupted their 24 hour programs in protest against attacks on freedom of the media and freedom of the media.

The protest action was launched in solidarity with BTA FM radio station, which was banned for interviewing a union leader - Aboubacar Soumah - in connection with the strike by teachers for higher salary.

Radio BTA FM radio station was suspended for doing its work - interviewing people in the news.

TAEF calls on the government in Guinea to lift the suspension on the BTA FM radio station and to desist from any action that inhibits media freedom and freedom of expression. We also call on the government of Guinea to remove from its statute books, all laws that are inimical to media freedom.

About  Media  in Guinea

The government essentially runs the news media in the Republic of Guinea (Républic de Guinée), a coastal West African country where the United Nations projects a population of 7,860,000, including refugees who fled in 2001 from Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Though the Constitution of 1991 is in force, government censorship applies, and critics charge that presidential and parliamentary elections in the 1990s were not open.

The daily newspaper, Fonike , which had a circulation in the twenty thousands in the late 1990s, is state-owned. Horoya (Liberty) is published in French and the local languages. Journal Officiel de Guinée is a fortnightly government organ. A federation of Guinean workers has published Le Travailleur de Guinée, a monthly. L'Indépendant is an independent weekly.

The official news agency since 1986 has been the Agence Guinéenne de Presse (AGP), an offshoot of the UNESCO-supported West African News Agencies Development (WANAD) project. Xinhua , APN, and TASS have representations in Conakry.

The state-controlled Radiodiffusion Télévision Guinéenne broadcasts over eight radio stations in French, English, Portuguese, Arabic, and native dialects; in 1998 citizens owned about 390,000 radios. Interactive instruction by radio has been tried in Guinean classrooms.

State television broadcasts, which started in 1977, were reaching about 87,000 TV sets in the late 1990s. Six TV stations operated in 1997. The Société des Télécommunications de Guinée is forty percent state-owned.

Computer use is growing. In 1995, Guineans owned an estimated one hundred personal computers, but by the year 2000, Internet users numbered about five thousand. In mid-2002 the university at Kankan, isolated in the interior, was getting its own campus computer system and high-speed Internet connection.

Significant Dates

1977: State-sponsored television broadcasts begin.

2002: A college in the interior is wired for the Internet.

Read more: http://www.pressreference.com/Fa-Gu/Guinea.html#ixzz4zuLMxPnY

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/MOI/GABON 2017

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