France: CFWIJ Horrified At The Death Threats Towards Journalist Maty Fall
Location: France, Paris
Date: May 21, 2021
Journalist Maty Fall, who is originally from Senegal, was sent death threats online while she was covering the event in her home country. The sheer volume of violence threats and abuses that she received caught the attention of local journalist unions and other civil society groups who have extended her support and condemned the campaign against her. Maty has since filed a complaint with the police.
Former presenter of Senegalese State Radio, journalist Maty Fall, now residing in France, received death threats and online vitriol for covering the political developments in Senegal for a political news program she presents in her host country. Last March, following the arrest of political leader Ousmane Sonko, the face of the opposition to President Macky Sall’s government, social media and the electronic news cycle has become exceedingly active in the country. This has led to journalists being targeted from either side of the conflict. Maty, too, was targeted as a result of her coverage of the event. The journalist identified followers of Sunko as those who sent her threatening messages.
The unions of journalists representative of the profession, SNJ, SNJ-CGT, CFDT-Journalists, members of the International Federation of Journalists, as well as the Senegalese Journalists Union (Synpics), issued a statement in support of Maty, condemning the attacks she faces. “These threats and pressures against a journalist are unacceptable,” claims their statement and adds that they “give their full support to our colleague and denounce these intolerable intimidations.” Maty has since filed a complaint with the local police regarding the threats she has received and an investigation is ongoing.
The Coalition For Women In Journalism is extremely concerned about the threats and the nature of the comments Maty has received, and urges both the French as well as the Senegalese government to pay heed to the state of security extended to the press in their respective countries, specially to women journalists who are particularly vulnerable to such violence. The digital space has become exceedingly violent over the past few years, especially for journalists, who do not have the option to stay anonymous online given the nature of their work. Social media platforms need to urgently redress the kind of misogynistic culture that they have allowed to exist and thrive on their platforms, given the real life repercussions action like these entail for those targeted. The police needs to urgently look into these threatening messages and hold those responsible to account in order to discourage such events in the future.
The CFWIJ strongly condemns the police brutality against journalists. We demand the immediate return of the press cards seized from the security forces. Policies to intimidate journalists should be abandoned, and journalism should be practiced under the criteria of freedom of the press.
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