Benin jails journo over Facebook post
Benin sentenced an investigative journalist to 18 months in prison on Tuesday for comments he posted on social media, his lawyer told AFP.
Ignace Sossou quoted on his Facebook and Twitter pages comments made by Benin’s public prosecutor Mario Metonou at a media event to discuss fake news on December 17.
The comments made by the official appeared to criticise the government’s attitude towards freedom of expression.
“The internet outage on (legislative) polling day on April 28 is an admission of weakness on the part of those in power,” the prosecutor reportedly said.
Sossou “has been convicted of harassment through electronic communications”, his lawyer, Prisca Ogoubi told AFP.
The former French colony has typically been seen as among West Africa’s most stable democracies. But Benin has been facing a political crisis since controversial parliamentary elections in April sparked mass protests.
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