Online editor jailed six months in Mauritania

A Nouakchott District Court on August 19, 2009 convicted Hanevy Ould Dahah, managing editor of the online Tagadoumy newspaper for defaming Ibrahima Moctar Sarr, a presidential candidate of the opposition Alliance for Justice and Democracy/Movement for Renovation (AJD/MR).

Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent reported that Hanevy was sentenced to six months imprisonment and slapped an outrageous fine of
US$ 30,000.

The correspondent said the judge also reproached the journalist for “creating a forum for faceless persons to publish information contrary to the tenets of Islam and accepted standards of good behaviour”.

Until the editor’s conviction, he had been in detention in Nouakchott Civil Prison since June 26.

Moctar Sarr in late May brought the complaint against the journalist after the editor accused him in an article posted on the Tagadoumy website on April 22. The article written by Hanevy accused Sarr of being dishonest by receiving bribes from the architects of the  August 8, 2008 coup d’état.

MFWA strongly condemns the conviction of the journalist which is an affront to democracy in West Africa and calls for his immediate release.

Source: MFWA