Media rights group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Wednesday called on the Botswana government to drop charges against a journalist accused of allegedly publishing falsehoods.
Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler director Tshepo Sethibe was arrested on July 13 when 25 law enforcement officers raided his home in the town of Mogoditshane, northwest of the capital Gaborone.
He is accused of contravening a law barring “alarming publications”.
The charges against Sethibe stem from a July 8 Facebook post by Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler about a missing six-year-old child, which alleged that police had found the child’s remains and would cremate them without holding a funeral or releasing them to the family.
“Botswana authorities should immediately drop the criminal charge against Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler director Tshepo Sethibe and return all devices seized from the publication,” CPJ Africa programme coordinator Angela Quintal said from Durban, South Africa.
The journalist told CPJ that he was arrested me because the government “is trying, by all means, to intimidate me from revealing the truth about the whereabouts of a six-year-old boy.”
The police seized two laptops, three mobile phones, a desktop computer, and passwords from Moeladilotlhoko News Boiler’s offices in the town of Kumakwane, Sethibe told CPJ.
The journalist appeared in the Village Magistrate Court in Gaborone on July 14 and was released on a bail of 2,000 pula (US$156) and is due to return to court date on September 6.
If convicted of spreading alarming publications, Sethibe could face up to two years imprisonment and an unstipulated fine.
JN/APA