Guinea revokes broadcast licenses of 6 media outlets

Dakar, May 23, 2023—Guinean authorities should immediately reinstate the media licenses for six blocked outlets and allow them to resume broadcasting freely after months of censorship, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.

On May 21 and 22, Guinea’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology revoked the broadcasting licenses of the private radio stations FIM, Espace, Sweet, Djoma, and Djoma TV and Espace TV stations, according to CPJ interviews with FIM editor Sekou Bah, Djoma Média press group’s manager Kalil Oularé, and Kabiné Condé, manager at Hadafo Médias, which owns Sweet FM and Espace Guinée.

Since December 2023, the outlets, as well as Evasion FM and TV, have been blocked by authorities in Guinea “for security reasons.”

“Guinean authorities should unconditionally reinstate the broadcast licenses of FIM, Espace, Sweet, Djoma, Espace TVstation, and Djoma TV, and allow them to resume operating without restriction,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ Africa, in Maputo, Mozambique. “These media outlets have been blocked since last year, and the revoking of their broadcast licenses is an alarming, compounding effort to censor the news in Guinea.”

The ministry’s decision, which was published by local media, cited “non-compliance with the specifications in accordance with current regulations.” Oularé and Condé told CPJ that the ministry did not specify the reasons.

CPJ called Fana Soumah, the Guinean Minister of Information and Communication, who promised to call back after a meeting but did not. CPJ’s other calls went unanswered.

Editor’s note: This statement has been updated to reflect to describe the media outlets.