Journalists detained over mutiny coverage

Six journalists have been arrested in the Ivory Coast for ‘spreading false information’ about a mutiny by security forces. As previously reported in Legalbrief Today, the country’s elite forces last week protested over their salary arrears by firing into the air in the town of Adiake. A report on the allAfrica site notes that they were arrested on suspicion of breaking the law which forbids inciting rebellion among the military and publishing false information relating to defence and state security. ‘We have come to believe that certain media organisations are spreading false information in a bid to encourage soldiers to revolt,’ the public prosecutor said in a statement. The editor and owner of the independent dailies L'Inter and SoirInfo were arrested detained in Abidjan, along with the editors and owners of the opposition newspapers Le Temps and Notre Voie.