Senegal journalists freed after outcry over arrests

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DAKAR - Two Senegalese journalists whose newsroom arrests this week sparked outrage in the west African nation had both been freed by Thursday morning, they and their representatives said.

The journalists were detained after conducting separate interviews with press magnate and government critic Madiambal Diagne, who lives in France and is subject to a Senegalese arrest warrant over alleged financial irregularities.

Maimouna Ndour Faye, director of 7TV television, was detained Tuesday evening by gendarmes during the broadcast of her interview with Diagne, according to a statement by the Senegalese press association CDEPS.

"Heavily armed gendarmes stormed the media outlet's offices" and "tried to forcibly take" Faye away, the channel's editor-in-chief, Seckou Dieme, told AFP.

According to her lawyer Amadou Sall, Faye was freed Thursday following the arrest, which was for "undermining state security and undermining the authority of the judiciary".

The director of Senegal's RFM radio Babacar Fall was arrested by police after a live interview Wednesday with the mogul.

"The police stormed our premises and left with Babacar Fall in handcuffs", a journalist reported on RFM.

Fall was freed late Wednesday without charge, and said in an interview on RFM that he was doing "well".

The arrests sparked an outcry among press groups and the political class, which called the detentions a serious attack on freedom of speech.

The Union of Information and Communication Professionals of Senegal expressed "deep concern" in a statement, saying that the detentions "challenge democratic conscience". Other non-profit groups also expressed concern.

Prosecutions for opinion-related offences in recent months have piled up in Senegal, sparking mounting concerns over what critics and rights groups say are increasing curbs on freedom of speech in the west African country.