Togo on Monday, June 16, suspended French broadcasters RFI and France 24 for three months, the media regulator said, accusing both of transmitting "inexact and tendentious" content. "Several recent broadcasts relayed inaccurate, biased, and even factually incorrect statements, undermining the stability of republican institutions and the country's image," Togo's High Authority of Audiovisual and Communication (HAAC) said in a statement.
It comes after anti-government protests last week that shook the capital, Lomé. Dozens of people were arrested after police dispersed protesters with tear gas on the night of June 5 in several districts, including near the presidential palace. The government swiftly said it had released more than 50 people, but several remain in police custody.
The protesters gathered in response to a call by a popular rapper, Aamron, to denounce arrests of anti-government campaigners, rising electricity prices and constitutional changes enacted by the government of President Faure Gnassingbé, who took power in 2005 on the death of his father, who ruled for nearly four decades.
Calls for protests intensified after Aamron, whose real name is Essowe Tchalla, reappeared in a video 10 days after he was arrested from his Lome home on May 26. Prior to his arrest, he had joined others in calling for the protests. But in the video, he apologized to the president and said he was in a psychiatric hospital for what he described as "severe depression."
The state prosecutor slammed the demonstrations as "clearly part of a revolt against the institutions of the republic."
Togolese opposition parties and civil society groups on Thursday demanded Gnassingbe step down, urging a civil disobedience campaign following last week's youth-led demonstrations. He "must return power to the Togolese people to whom national sovereignty belongs," the National Alliance for Change (ANC), Democratic Forces for the Republic (FDR) and civil society groups said in a statement. The groups urged citizens to launch acts of civil disobedience from June 23 to thwart the "illegitimate" regime.
Protests have been banned in Togo since 2022, following a deadly attack at Lome's main market, though public meetings are still allowed.