Radio station cut for 24hrs

2004-05-13 20:20

Abidjan - Ivory Coast's audiovisual council is to take Radio France Internationale (RFI) off the air for 24 hours because it leaked a UN report condemning high-ranking government officials for their role in a deadly crackdown on an opposition rally, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

The daily Courrier d'Abidjan said RFI would be cut off for 24 hours on the FM frequency from 06:00 on Saturday because of its "partisan" coverage of the UN report.

The audiovisual council was not immediately available to confirm or deny the press report.

RFI leaked the UN report, compiled by a commission whose members visited Abidjan for two weeks from mid-April, on May 3. The report is due to be presented to the UN Security Council on Friday.

The report says that a crackdown on an anti-government protest in Ivory Coast in March claimed at least 120 lives and was "carefully planned and executed" by security forces under orders from "the highest state authorities".

"What happened on 25 and 26 March was the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians and the committing of massive human rights violations" said the report, the contents of which were first made public by RFI.

"At least 120 people were killed, 274 wounded and 20 disappeared" it said, adding: "These figures are by no means final".

The opposition and rights groups have said up to 500 people were killed but the Ivory Coast government has insisted that the death toll was just 37.

"Certain community groups were specially targeted - individuals from the north of the country or from neighbouring countries" the report said.

RFI, BBC's Africa service and Africa One radio stations all went off the air on March 25, the day of the demonstration called by the opposition in defiance of a ban on public gatherings to press President Laurent Gbagbo to fully implement a peace pact signed in 2003.

International radio stations were also cut off in September 2002, when a rebel uprising sparked civil war that to this day has left Ivory Coast divided into the pro-Gbagbo south and rebel-held north.

Ivory Coast's UN envoy on May 5 demanded that the world body investigate the leak of the report.

"We demand that an enquiry be conducted in the matter and sanctions taken against those responsible" for the leak to the media, UN ambassador Philippe Djangone-Bi said.

- AFP