Mali’s media regulator, the Haute Autorité de la Communication (HAC), announced the suspension of La Chaine Info(LCI) on all radio or television broadcast channels on August 23, 2024. The sanction takes immediate effect, according to the HAC which accused the French media outlet of making “disparaging remarks, gratuitous assertions and false accusations of atrocities” against the “Malian armed forces and their Russian partners.”
The regulator’s decision is in respect of the broadcast on July 27, 2024, of a programme on LCI entitled “Wagner decimated in Mali: The hand of Kiev”. The programme featured an analysis by Colonel Michel Goya, the channel’s military consultant, about the recent deadly attack by insurgents. The HAC accused Colonel Goya and LCI of several violations of some legal and regulatory provisions during the broadcast, particularly with regard to Malian laws on private audiovisual communication services and the press regime.
In addition, the HAC deemed some of the statements to be “tantamount to glorification of terrorism and incitement to destabilization.”
This is not the first clampdown on a French media by Malian authorities, especially by the media regulator, the HAC.
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