The story about the treatment of journalists Axel Chenney, Yasin Denmamode from l’express and the director of publications of La Sentinelle, Nad Sivaramen, has already resulted in negative publicity on the international level. Global news agency Reuters published a story entitled “Mauritius police search journalists' homes after money laundering story” yesterday night, Monday 25^th September – a report that is likely to be followed by many more.

Africanews, which is a leading news site on the African continent, has already picked up the story. Their reporter, Ismail Akwei, wrote that the police conducted searches in the Mauritian journalists’ houses over story that “got Justice Minister Ravi Yerrigadoo sacked”, the story that went online today reads. Hervé Duval Jr, Sivaramen’s lawyer, said that the police action is an attempt to intimidate the journalists, Africanews also reported.

The criticism against the authorities’ handling of the situation was widespread within the country even before international media outlets picked up on it. Before sunrise on Monday night, police officers showed up at the journalists’ homes with search warrants in hand. Uniformed officers climbed a wall to get into Denmamode’s family’s property. “They said that they had a warrant to search our house but when I asked to see the document, they wouldn’t show it to me,” said Rashid Denmamode, the journalist’s father. 

None of the journalists were at home when their houses were searched by the police early in the morning in the context of their story on Yerrigadoo’s alleged ties to money laundering. They all voluntarily went to the Line Barracks yesterday afternoon, where they were interrogated. Sivaramen was arrested and released on bail. Husein Abdool Rahim, the whistleblower in the story about Yerrigadoo, accuses him and his team of journalists of supposedly having taken advantage of him as part of an alleged conspiracy. The reporters maintain that the only “crime” they are guilty of is having done their job. 

Journalists from the editorial teams of Weekly, l’express, Bonzour, Business Magazine and Essentielle and 5Plus as well as other media groups were present at the police station yesterday. The majority of them were denied access by police officers who were “following instructions”. 

The interrogations of the journalists continue today. 

For more views and in-depth analysis of current issues, subscribe to Weekly for as little as Rs110 a month. Free delivery to your door. Contact us: touria.prayag@lexpress.mu