IVORYCOAST: OPPOSITION LEADERS JAILED FOR SPEAKING OUT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT

 A juge mocking a political opponent after he sentenced him to 6 months in prison for speaking out against president Allassane Ouattara.


IvoryCoast: A top leader of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo's party was jailed for six months on Friday for disturbing public order, as his supporters denounced what they said was a political verdict.

Laurent Akoun, the number two in the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), had been arrested on Sunday.

His sentence was announced after a four-hour hearing during which prosecutor Allah Kouame had asked for a jail term of five years.

Kouame pointed to comments he said Akoun had made at a meeting of his supporters, which had been picked up in the press.

His accusations that President Alassane Ouattare had lied and his claim that the president had wanted to kill his political rival Gbagbo amounted to incitement to revolt and were a threat to public order, the prosecutor argued.

During the hearing, presiding judge Braman Kone had asked Akoun about any possible connection with his comments and a wave of deadly attacks against the army that started a few days later.

His questions provoked an uproar in the court, where many of Akoun's party colleagues were present.
"It's not by breaking and muzzling the opposition that you'll manage to solve the problems in this country," Akoun retorted.

Toussaint Zahui Dako, one of Akoun's lawyers, who had argued for the charges to be dismissed, said the defence would be appealing.

"It's a disappointment," he said of the jail term.

"It was clear throughout from the questions put by the prosecutor that it was a political verdict."

Ambroise Farama, another lawyer for Akoun, also denounced the sentence.

"Handing the secretary general such a sentence is a bid to decapitate the party," he said.

"It is not for the courts to take such a decision."

Akoun is the third key Gbagbo ally to be detained in recent days, after speaking out against President Alassane Ouattara's government.

Another close Gbagbo official, former minister Alphonse Douati, was arrested on August 18 and later

AFP ( French News Agency)

SI LE RDR POUVAIT LE COMPRENDRE AINSI

La recherche des solutions pour sortir définitivement la Côte d’Ivoire de la situation qu’elle vit en ce moment incombant, à un certain degré, à tous les Ivoiriens, l’un d’entre eux, Djédjé Mady, secrétaire général du PDCI et député de son état, a pris son courage à deux mains pour dire quelques vérités : «C’est vrai, il faut laisser chacun faire son travail mais c’est aussi vrai que nous sommes en période de recherche de réconciliation. Tout ce qui peut être fait pour que la réconciliation devienne une réalité est une bonne chose. C’est pourquoi je crois qu’il faut aussi saluer la phrase à deux volets du président Ouattara quand il est arrivé. Il a lancé un appel à la réconciliation, il a aussi parlé de ce que la justice devrait faire son travail. On souhaite donc que la justice fasse son travail mais que des mesures soient aussi prises et que la réconciliation soit possible. Je pense que les effets que nous donnera le processus de réconciliation sont immenses par rapport à ce qu’une justice pure et dure aura donné aux Ivoiriens dans leur ensemble. Nous sommes tous fautifs à des niveaux divers, à des degrés divers. La réconciliation suppose des sacrifices de part et d’autre».
En clair, Djédjé Mady demande à Ouattara de faire comme Nelson Mandela. D’être un grand homme d’Etat et non le président d’un parti politique. Si le RDR pouvait le comprendre ainsi.
Assale Tiemoko

IVORYCOAST: INHUMANE TREATMENT OF OPPOSITION LEADERS FROM PRESIDENT ALLASSANE OUATTARA FORCES

IVORYCOAST: ETHNIC CLEANSING FROM PRESIDENT ALLASSANE OUATTARA'S FORCES

8/27/12 IvoryCoast: These are more examples of  president Allassane Ouattara’s brutal regime that is now taking revenge on supporters of President Gbagbo. Ouattara's Forces . . . sealed off and searched areas formerly controlled by pro-Gbagbo's supporters . . . and the majority of documented abuses occurred in the longtime pro-Gbagbo stronghold of Yopougon . . . . Most killings were point-blank executions of youth from ethnic groups generally aligned with Gbagbo, in what appeared to be collective punishment for these groups' participation in Gbagbo's reelection.

C'EST POUR CA IL EST TOUJOURS A NICE PENDANT QUE LES OPPOSANTS SONT BAILLONNES

http://www.itele.fr/video/les-amis-de-sarkozy-se-reunissent

Ma Famille videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-V8jFz5xJU&feature=related

DS Selections

Rassemblement des jeunes du RDR qui, réuni le 22 août en Assemblée générale extraordinaire, a pondu un communiqué très vigoureux à propos des récentes attaques contre des positions des FRCI à travers le pays. «L’Assemblée générale encourage les Forces Républicaines de Côte d’Ivoire qui, chaque jour, font face à des actes terroristes (…) que les FRCI perquisitionnent systématiquement toutes les maisons et ratissent toutes les régions de Côte d’Ivoire… » (« Soir Info », 23/08). Que les Frci perquisitionnent systématiquement toutes les maisons ? Y compris celles des FRCI ? Qu’elles ratissent toutes les régions de Côte d’Ivoire ? Déjà qu’elles n’arrivent pas, depuis plus d’un an, à ratisser à l’ouest…
Secrétaire général adjoint du Pdci-Rda. Lequel a réussi un bel exploit dans la déclaration qu’il a rendue public, hier lundi 20 août sur le site « lebanco.net » à propos de l’attaque contre le siège du Fpi et qui sera certainement disponible aujourd’hui dans les journaux pro-Pdci : «(...) En notre qualité d'homme politique, nous jugeons cet acte inacceptable, condamnons cette agression du siège du FPI, parti politique légalement constitué et souhaitons un prompt rétablissement aux blessés (…) de 2000 à 2011, sous la gouvernance du régime FPI, le siège du PDCI, sis à Cocody a été, à quatre (04) reprises, l'objet d'attaques par les patriotes et miliciens militants du FPI puissamment armés qui ont, à chaque fois, saccagé le siège, détruit toute la documentation du PDCI-RDA et incendié les installations avec à la clé, le meurtre de trois (03) de nos jeunes militants au siège même du PDCI-RDA». Guikahué a une singulière façon de soutenir les autres dans le malheur

IVORYCOAST NEWSPAPERS HALT PUBLICATION AFTER ATTACKS ON THEIR HQ BY GOVERNMENT ARMED MILITIA MEN

http://news.yahoo.com/coast-papers-halt-publication-arson-attack-140827041.html

AN OFFICIAL FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF GAMBIA DOES GIVES HIS POINT VIEW ON IVORYCOAST

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFmAaBGhUbU&feature=player_embedded

EX-IVORYCOAST LEADER'S PARTY ACCUSES GOVERNMENT OF TERRORIST ATTACKS ON HQ AND OPPOSITION NEWSPAPERS OFFICES

Former Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo's party accused the government of current President Alassane Ouattara on Wednesday of sponsoring an armed attack on its headquarters last weekend.

"It's the government that is the sponsor of this violence on Saturday," Laurent Akoun, the secretary general of Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), told a press conference.
Armed men attacked the party's offices Saturday, abducting two people and wounding three. The FPI blamed the attack on supporters of Ouattara, Gbagbo's rival in a post-election crisis that plunged the country into violent chaos from December 2010 to April 2011 and claimed 3,000 lives.
Ouattara's party, the Rally of Republicans (RDR), denied the accusation and condemned the attack.
Akoun said the government was responsible for the disappearance of the two FPI youth members kidnapped in the attack, accusing Ouattara's administration of "totalitarian excesses" and retaliation against the party.
He also called for the immediate release of former minister Alphonse Douati, FPI deputy secretary general, who was arrested Saturday and has been charged with violating state security.
Saturday's attack heightened tensions in Abidjan, the country's economic capital, after a recent series of attacks against the army that the government has wrongly blamed on the main opposition party FPI.
Source: AFP

IMAGES OF OPPRESSION IN IVORYCOAST

IVORYCOAST: A MOTHER BEGGING HER SON'S LIFE FROM ARMED GOVERNMENT MILITIAS IN A GOVERNMENT CRACKDOWN ON OPPOSITION SUPPORTERS . IN THE NIGHTS OF FRIDAY 8/17/2012 AND EARLY MORNING OF SATURDAY 8/18/2012, THE MAIN OPPOSITION PARTY HEADQUARTERS AND ITS NEWSPAPERS OFFICES WERE BURNED DOWN BY GOVERNMENT MILITIAS.                 
                
 

IVORYCOAST: REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS WORRY ABOUT FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

Emergency funds for targeted journalist unable to get medical treatment

* Reporters Without Borders is providing temporary financial assistance to Awa Ehoura, a journalist who presented the 8 p.m. news programme on state-owned Radio-Télévision Ivoirienne (RTI) when Laurent Gbagbo was president.

Like other prominent people regarded as supporters of the former president, her bank accounts have been frozen since his fall from power in early 2011. And, as a result of being suspended by RTI, she ceased to have medical insurance cover on 12 January, so she has been left without any way to get treatment for her diabetes.

As a result, Reporters Without Borders yesterday sent her funds to cover her medical bills and the medicine she needs to buy.

“ Awa Ehoura is a journalist, not a criminal. It is unreasonable and unjust that such a sanction intended to punish her supposed support for the former regime has left her in such dire straits. We are sending her this money as a humanitarian gesture.”

Reporters Without Borders added: “The treatment suffered by this journalist should alert public opinion and the government. The way she has been marginalized is incompatible with the need for justice and national reconciliation. It is time to lift the order freezing assets for those who were unjustly targeted.”

Why is police intelligence holding opposition media executive?

*Reporters Without Borders calls on the interior ministry to immediately account for media executive Ousmane Sy Savané’s arrest yesterday by the Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (DST), a police intelligence agency. Savané is director general of Cyclone, a company that publishes the opposition dailies Le Temps and LG Info.

“If the DST, an interior ministry offshoot, is holding Savané then it should acknowledge this and should publicly say what he is accused of. Was he arrested for a common crime or was he arrested for a press offence? We call on the authorities to release this journalist, who is the second media executive to be arrested by the DST in less than two months, following Le Patriote managing editor Charles Sanga at the start of February.”

Savané was arrested at around 1 p.m. yesterday at Cyclone’s offices in the Abidjan neighbourhood of Riviera Deux by police officers who removed computer equipment belonging to the company.

GOVERNEMENT ARMED MILITIA GROUPS BURNED DOWN OPPOSITION NEWSPAPERS HEADQUARTERS

The group's headquarters editing the Ivorian opposition newspaper the Times , was attacked by supporters of president Allassane Ouatara in the night from Saturday to Sunday in Abidjan.

"At about midnight, the group's headquarters Cyclone (which publishes The Times and two other opposition newspapers), was attacked by a group of men in civilian clothes, who beat the guard," AFP was told. The men are believed to be president Allassane Ouattara supporters

A grid was forced, a room on the ground floor set on fire, and the attackers tried unsuccessfully to set fire to two other offices. Photos were also scattered on the ground.
Computer equipment was also stolen, said Mr. Gbané ( director of edition Cyclone).

"Freedom of press should be protected, security should be for everyone, "he pleaded.

"We will never be silent," he said, announcing that Times,
virulent opponent of the regime of President Alassane Ouattara, will come out next Tuesday, after a suspension of twenty titles decided by the government of president Allassane Ouattara's regulatory authority  following a disputed writing.

Earlier saturday morning, a main opposition headquarters was attacked by governement armed militia groups, injuring three opposition youth leaders and burning down part of the opposition headquarters.

THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY MEA CULPA

ABIDJAN( IVORYCOAST): EXCERPTS FROM AFP (FRENCH NEWS AGENCY)

Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko blames the new attacks on Gbagbo's supporters working in partnership with rogue soldiers. But observers say that the violence is being abetted by the proliferation of arms throughout the country, a failure to reintegrate and disarm tens of thousands of ex-pro-Ouattara combatants, a stalled reconciliation process and one-sided justice from Ouattara's government that is exacerbating political divisions.

Toward the end of the post-election violence last year, Ouattara created a new army composed largely of fighters from the former New Forces rebel movement, which controlled the northern half of the country during a conflict that lasted from 2002 to 2010. However, many New Forces fighters have not been integrated into the new army.

These former rebels are disgruntled because in many cases they remain unemployed or are stuck working low-paying jobs more than one year after Ouattara came to power, said Drissa Kone, an Ivorian analyst based in Atlanta. He said that some of the fighters could well be former Ouattara backers.

"After the crisis there were a lot of fighters for the Forces Nouvelles that didn't get the remuneration they were expecting," Kone said, referring to the rebel group by its French name. "The fighters can be from anywhere."

Ivorian officials have been reluctant to acknowledge this possibility. Deputy Defense Minister Paul Koffi Koffi said Friday that the perpetrators of the recent violence could be divided into two categories: pro-Gbagbo militias and the mercenaries from the neighboring country of Liberia whom they have hired.

Several observers said this explanation may be deliberately simplistic.

"State representatives may be so adamant that pro-Gbagbo forces are behind the attacks because they know or suspect that some of their own former supporters are also involved," said Joseph Hellweg, an Ivory Coast expert at Florida State University. 

Meanwhile, there has been little progress to show for reconciliation efforts, including a truth and reconciliation commission formed last year. And there are few indications that divisions between the pro-Ouattara and pro-Gbagbo camps will soon be bridged.

"The fact is that national reconciliation has not yet started," said civil society activist Yacouba Doumbia.

Human Rights Watch and other groups say one-sided justice continues to polarize the country, undermining any faith that Gbagbo supporters might have in government institutions. Gbagbo has been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court at The Hague, and more than 100 Gbagbo loyalists have been detained in Ivory Coast for their alleged roles during the postelection violence. But no Ouattara supporters have been detained or credibly investigated, despite evidence that they, too, committed atrocities. A new report of a national commission blames pro-Ouattara forces for hundreds of deaths. 

"A politicized judiciary has been at the heart of the Ivorian crisis for the last decade, undermining the rule of law and contributing to the country's deep divisions," said Matt Wells, a researcher for Human Rights Watch. "By sending the message that certain victim groups are less worthy of justice for post-election crimes, the one-sided prosecutions under the Ouattara government threaten to further this dangerous legacy of division."

A sense of insecurity persists over many parts of Ivory Coast.

IVORYCOAST: GOVERNEMENT ARMED MILITIA GROUPS BURNED DOWN OPPOSITION NEWSPAPERS HEADQUARTERS

The group's headquarters editing the Ivorian opposition newspaper the Times , was attacked by supporters of president Allassane Ouatara in the night from Saturday to Sunday in Abidjan.

"At about midnight, the group's headquarters Cyclone (which publishes The Times and two other opposition newspapers), was attacked by a group of men in civilian clothes, who beat the guard," AFP was told. The men are believed to be president Allassane Ouattara supporters

A grid was forced, a room on the ground floor set on fire, and the attackers tried unsuccessfully to set fire to two other offices. Photos were also scattered on the ground.
Computer equipment was also stolen, said Mr. Gbané ( director of edition Cyclone).

"Freedom of press should be protected, security should be for everyone, "he pleaded.

"We will never be silent," he said, announcing that Times,
virulent opponent of the regime of President Alassane Ouattara, will come out next Tuesday, after a suspension of twenty titles decided by the government of president Allassane Ouattara's regulatory authority  following a disputed writing.

Earlier saturday morning, a main opposition headquarters was attacked by governement armed militia groups, injuring three opposition youth leaders and burning down part of the opposition headquarters.

OPPOSITION LEADERS INJURED BY GOVERNMENT MILITIA FORCES

RDR militants from president Allassane Ouattara's political party, heavily armed and escorted by pro-government forces (FRCI) attacked this morning the new headquarters of FPI ( main opposition party)  based in the Rivera Attoban. Having ransacked and looted the premises, they have attacked the party leaders who were at the scene. Several party officials from former president Laurent Gbagbo are injured and in poor states




.

IL YA TROIS JOURS QUE L'ANCIEN DEPUTE DU PLATEAU ET MEMBRE DU FPI, MADI BOUABRE SEJOURNE ILLEGALLEMENT A LA DST, SANS VISITE DE SA FAMILLE NI ASSISTANCE LEGALE.

INTERPELLATION DU BEAU FRÈRE DE SIMONE EHIVET GBAGBO À LA FRONTIÈRE IVOIRO-GHANÉENNE

Simone EHIVET GBAGBO

Madi Bouabré, l'époux de la sœur cadette de l'ex-première dame de Côte d'Ivoire, Simone Ehivet Gbagbo a été interpellé lundi en début après-midi à la frontière ivoiro-ghanéenne par des éléments des forces républicaines de Côte d'Ivoire (FRCI), a appris APA de bonne source militaire.

Selon la même source jointe au téléphone par APA, " M. Madi Bouabré serait allé déposer son épouse Ehivet Victoire et ses enfants à Elibu, la première ville ghanéenne qui fait frontière avec la Côte d'Ivoire''.

"M. Madi Bouabré à bord d'une voiture de marque Nissan de couleur Noire immatriculée 37 64 ET01 a été intercepté par des élements des Forces Républicaines de Côte d'Ivoire (FRCI) à Noé, dernière ville ivoirienne faisant frontière avec le Ghana) plus précisément à N'Zikro'', a expliqué la même la source.

M. Madi devrait être escorté à Abidjan par la police du commissariat de Noé dirigé par le commissaire Fofana Ibrahima. 

Jusque-là, explique la même source "M. Bouabré refuse de prendre place à bord du véhicule de la police qui devrait le conduire à la DST pour interrogation à Abidjan''.

" Il a confié qu'il était allé déposer son épouse et ses enfants au Ghana et qu'il rentrait chez lui''.

La famille de l'ex-chef de l'Etat ivoirien, Laurent Gbagbo incarcéré à la Haye (Pays bas) depuis le 29 novembre 2011 a trouvé refuge au Ghana, pays frontalier à la Côte d'Ivoire où vivent aussi de nombreux ivoiriens exilés après la crise post électorale.

AVEC CE GOUVERNEMENT, CHAQUE MOIS A SON SCANDALE FINANCIER; MAIS PERSONNE NE VA EN PRISON

UN AMI MUSULMAN M'A DIT DE PUBLIER CE MESSAGE

REFUGEES IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY

NOWHERE TO GO AFTER PRESIDENT ALLASSANE OUATTARA'S MILITIA FORCES ATTACKED LAST THURSDAY A REFUGEE CAMP IN THE TOWN OF DUEKOUE IN IVORYCOAST KILLING 58 AND WOUNDING 216. THESE PRO-OUATTARA FORCES KILLED IN THE SAME TOWN OF DUEKOUE 816 PEOPLE IN ONE DAY ACCORDING TO REPORT FROM HRW BACK IN MARCH 2011. THESE REFUGEES DESPERATELY NEED SHELTER AND FOOD . WHEN WILL OUATTARA BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE TO ANSWER ALL THESE CRIMES?