Dakar — Chadian authorities should stop harassing journalist Olivier Memnguidé and ensure journalists can cover events of public interest, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.

On 20 April, the Chadian Gendarmerie, a military police force, arrested Memnguidé, a correspondent for the private radio station Oxygène, while he was covering unrest in the town of Donia, in the south-west of the Logone Occidental region, according to the journalist and Abbas Mahamoud, the president of the Union of Journalists of Chad (UJT). They both spoke to CPJ by phone and email.

Memnguidé and Mahamoud said the gendarmerie seized the journalist’s mobile phone and took him to their office in the nearby town of Moundou, where he was charged with rebellion, detained for five days, then released after the intervention of the local prosecutor. The gendarmerie informed Memnguided upon his release that he should be ready because they could still prosecute him, he told CPJ, adding that as of May 12, his cellphone had still not been returned.

“Chadian authorities should stop harassing Radio Oxygène journalist Olivier Memnguidé and ensure that he can work freely and without fear of further arrest or arbitrary prosecution,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal. At New York. “Covering the unrest is dangerous enough for reporters to not worry about being arrested on false anti-state allegations.”

Memnguidé was arrested along with several young adults from Donia “who rioted in response to the detention of another youth accused of allegedly stealing a motorbike”, Mahamoud told CPJ.

“I went to the field to get a feel for the situation and do some scouting. When I was about to meet [and interview] the authorities, the brigade commander who was following me, arrested me and took me to Moundou, the provincial capital,” Memnguidé told CPJ. The journalist said he had not engaged in any behavior that would justify being charged with rebellion.

Five days later, on April 25, Memnguidé was brought before the Moundou prosecutor’s office, where the deputy prosecutor ordered his release because the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case, the journalist told CPJ. Since then, Memnguidé has not returned to his home in Goré, another nearby town, for fear of being arrested again.

CPJ called Ahmed Saleh, a local gendarmerie commander, but the line died after CPJ told him the call was about Memnguidé’s arrest.