Reporters Sans Frontières’ Report: Western Sahara, A News Blackhole | freedomsupport

In its report on press freedoms in Western Sahara, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) sheds light on a territory cut off from the rest of the world, a veritable news black hole that has become a no-go zone for journalists.

“Western Sahara, a desert for journalists,” is the first-ever work of research into press freedoms in this non-autonomous territory, which RSF’s Spanish section is unveiling in Madrid on 11 June.

A forgotten story

The silence enveloping the area stems principally from the constant persecution and repression of Sahrawi journalists who endeavor to practice their profession outside official Moroccan channels, but also from the fact that it is impossible for foreign journalists to work there.

Morocco applies a quasi-systematic policy of turning back the foreign press trying to enter Western Sahara and of harshly punishing the local citizen-journalists who strive to give a version of the news differing from the official line, through social networks. Over the years, these two sorts of blockade have imposed a virtual news black-out on Western Sahara.

“Nobody talks about Western Sahara anymore”, said Alfonso Armada, president of RSF-Spain. “The territory, being neither at war nor at peace, is nowadays covered by foreign media only from the humanitarian angle, but the conflict has been dragging on inconclusively for four decades.”

Testimonies

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