Togo: Togo Says It Has 'Serious' Evidence Against Detained French Journalists

What the report says

Togo’s government says it has “serious and consistent evidence” against two French documentary filmmakers, Gaël Mocaër and Sebastian Perez Pezzani, who have been detained since late July along with a Togolese fixer, Fred Vedomey. The statement, cited by Radio France Internationale and distributed by AllAfrica, is the authorities’ first formal account of the case and comes as the men continue to deny wrongdoing.

According to the report, the three were arrested on 27 July while filming a travel documentary in northern Togo for French television. Togo’s justice and security ministries said the team lacked the proper permits to film in the locations they visited in the Savanes region and Bimah prefecture, and also accused them of using a drone whose technical details had not been declared in advance. The government said the paperwork was issued only in Vedomey’s name and did not cover the filmmakers.

Their lawyer, Martial Akakpo, told AFP that the journalists reject all allegations. Press freedom group Reporters Without Borders said Mocaër and Vedomey remained in pre-trial detention in Lomé, while Perez Pezzani had been placed under house arrest because of serious health problems. RSF and the Togolese Press Association have both criticized the detention, while officials maintain the case is about administrative rules, not the editorial content being filmed.

The episode comes against a wider backdrop of tension between Togo and some French media outlets, and amid security concerns in the country’s north, where parts of the region are under emergency measures because of militant violence from the Sahel.