Trending 
Two Senegalese journalists have been taken into custody after conducting interviews with a prominent media tycoon and outspoken government critic currently based in France — a figure who is himself wanted by authorities in Senegal, AFP learned on Wednesday from their respective newsrooms.
Maimouna Ndour Faye, who heads the television broadcaster 7TV, was detained on Tuesday night by gendarmes as her interview aired, the Senegalese press association CDEPS said in a statement shared with AFP.
Her lawyer, Amadou Sall, told AFP that she was arrested on allegations of “undermining state security and undermining the authority of the judiciary”.
On Wednesday morning, Babacar Fall, director of the influential RFM radio station, was also handcuffed and detained by police shortly after his own live interview with the same businessman.
“The police stormed our premises and left with Babacar Fall”, a journalist announced on RFM following the raid.
According to RFM’s management, two additional reporters from the organisation were taken away alongside Fall but were released soon after.
Neither Senegal’s police nor the gendarmerie provided an immediate response to AFP’s requests for comment.
The Union of Information and Communication Professionals of Senegal issued a statement expressing “deep concern”, arguing that the detentions “challenge democratic conscience”.
Both Faye and Fall had interviewed Madiambal Diagne — a leading media mogul and vocal critic of the government — who was briefly arrested in France last week under an international warrant before being freed.
Senegal issued that arrest warrant in September after Diagne left the country. Investigators had summoned him over what they described as questionable financial transactions.
Diagne owns the Avenir Communication media group and serves as editor of the newspaper Le Quotidien.
