Dakar – The arrest of two Senegalese journalists this week in their newsrooms over their interviews of a wanted media mogul and government critic sparked outrage Wednesday in the west African nation.
The journalists conducted two separate interviews of Senegalese press magnate Madiambal Diagne, who is living in France and subject to an arrest warrant in Senegal over alleged financial irregularities.
On Tuesday evening journalist Maimouna Ndour Faye, the director of the television channel 7TV, was detained 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” during the broadcast and “tried to forcibly take” Ndour away, the channel’s editor-in-chief, Seckou Dieme, told AFP.
According to her lawyer Amadou Sall, the arrest was for “undermining state security and undermining the authority of the judiciary”.
On Wednesday morning the director of Senegal’s RFM radio Babacar Fall was also arrested by police after his live interview 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, and said in an interview on RFM that he was doing “well”.
Two other journalists from the same media group were arrested alongside Fall, but were released shortly afterwards, the radio station’s management said.
Deux journalistes arrêtés au Sénégal pour avoir interviewé Madiambal Diagne, homme d’affaire et fugitif qui s’est exilé en France depuis un mois et qui est sur le coup d’un mandat d’arrêt international émis par le Sénégal.
NB: Babacar Fall a finalement été libéré. pic.twitter.com/RJqISrSKhQ
— Elimane Ndao (@NdaoEli) October 29, 2025
Criticism of prime minister
Senegal issued an arrest warrant in September for Diagne, who owns a major Senegalese media group, but had already left the country.
Diagne, who runs the Avenir Communication press group and edits the newspaper Le Quotidien, had been summoned by investigators looking into alleged suspect financial transactions.
In his interview with Fall, Diagne claimed his case was “political” and that he possessed files implicating Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko.
Authorities had not yet commented publicly on the matter as of late Wednesday.
7TV’s signal was interrupted for several hours Wednesday morning on cable, according to Dieme.
On non-cable television, the signals of 7TV and also TFM, which belongs to the same group as RFM, remained suspended.
🗞️ Communiqué conjoint – La RADDHO, la LSDH, ARTICLE 19 et Amnesty International Sénégal se disent préoccupées par l’interpellation des journaliste Maïmouna Ndour Faye (7TV) et Babacar Fall (RFM), et demandent leur libération immédiate.
🗞️ Communiqué du SYNICS – Le Syndicat des… pic.twitter.com/PduUg8V5WS
— Vie-Publique SN (@ViePubliqueSN) October 29, 2025
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”.
A group of nonprofits led by Amnesty International called for the journalists’ immediate release, while Diagne’s lawyers said they learnt of the detentions “with astonishment”.
In a statement Wednesday evening, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced “clearly disproportionate and alarming measures” and called for the reporters’ release.
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 relatively stable west African country.
Follow African Insider on Facebook, X and Instagram
Picture: Pixabay
For more African news, visit Africaninsider.com
Source: AFP
