Over the last decade, our country has experienced substantial media openness, culminating in the law liberalising the audiovisual sector and the launch of several private television and radio stations.
Since then, it has led the press freedom index in the Arab world. National media experienced considerable growth but suffered a sharp decline over the last year in content and output, alongside a dilution of professional personnel and collapse of institutional structures.
On World Press Freedom Day, the Mauritanian Journalists’ Union reaffirms its constant work to protect journalists’ rights and defend their fair and legitimate demands, drawing the Mauritanian government’s attention to the deplorable situation of the media and their workers.
Before discussing journalists’ conditions in Mauritania during 2017, we recall the case of our colleague Ishaq Ould El Mokhtar, who disappeared in Syria while covering events in Aleppo with his colleague, Lebanese cameraman Samir Kassab, and their Syrian driver.
The Mauritanian Journalists’ Union renews its continuing appeal to all official and popular bodies to intensify efforts to obtain information about Ishaq and his team and ensure his swift return to his family, colleagues and country.
The year 2017 witnessed numerous incidents and attacks against Mauritanian journalists, including arrests, beatings, confiscation of press equipment and the use of tear gas, despite the absence of journalists in prison and our country’s good standing in the global press freedom index.
The Union recorded numerous assaults on journalists, especially while they covered activities opposing the latest constitutional amendment. During the past year, it recorded four separate incidents involving beatings, arrests and equipment confiscation. Four journalists were also placed under judicial supervision over accusations relating to their newspapers’ funding. The Union therefore calls on Mauritanian authorities to strengthen a culture of freedoms within the state’s security and administrative services that repeatedly commit such violations against journalists.
The Union proudly notes the high standing reached by press freedoms in our country after decades of journalists’ struggle. It nevertheless stresses that Mauritanian media still face structural crises: official media organisations have not signed their specifications and commitments, while private media remain weak and lack even basic means and requirements, with journalists paying the price.
The preceding period saw sources of press funding dry up, and none of the recommendations from the general forums on press reform held in 2016 were implemented.
The Union warmly welcomes the enactment of the advertising law and calls for its swift implementation.
The year 2017 was also marked by private television channels closing because of financial problems with the public broadcasting company, negatively affecting Mauritania’s media. The Union expresses deep concern at the high price paid by dozens of journalists who have been out of work for months as a result. It calls for a swift solution and the reopening of closed private television channels in the interests of pluralism and freedom.
The absence of funding and the drying up of its sources threaten media work in Mauritania and warn of the disappearance of free media and private press enterprises. This requires urgent intervention by the authorities to rescue the sector through a mechanism supporting serious press organisations and encouraging journalistic enterprises, given the media’s great importance to development, democracy and the rule of law.
The Union stresses that journalists’ moral and material rights in Mauritania are in a deplorable state. Social security covers only a few journalists, with none for journalists in private media. Dozens of contributing staff also work without rights in various media organisations under conditions resembling “exploitation”.
The Union strongly condemns the arbitrary dismissals of journalists during the past year, which added to one of the country’s most notorious cases that has continued for years despite a labour court ruling in favour of the dismissed journalist. It calls on media organisations to protect working journalists’ rights and pay retirees their entitlements within the legally prescribed periods.
The state’s social responsibility requires immediate intervention to address journalists’ urgent demands within media organisations and protect existing gains by creating a suitable financing mechanism to develop national media and rescue them from their state of clinical death.
The Union is deeply concerned that serious press organisations working to rescue the sector are being dragged before the courts, alongside the dilution of the press support fund, denial of representation to serious organisations and their exclusion from support this year.
To strengthen press freedoms in our country, the Union held a conference to sign the Media Freedoms Charter in the Arab World on 26 January, attended by the International Federation of Journalists President and Arab and African delegations. The conference culminated in a meeting with President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who affirmed his personal support for protecting press freedoms in our country.
On this basis, the Union calls on the Mauritanian government, fellow journalists and national public opinion to work seriously to protect media gains and rescue remaining press organisations before the sector collapses under the deadly drying-up policy suffered by all its members. This does not serve the serious national media that we want to speak for truth, be the nation’s conscience and the people’s voice.
Mauritanian Journalists’ Union
Nouakchott: 03 - 05 - 2018