#Gabon: New commando attack against opposition television station TV+

New commando attack against a television station TV +.

Libreville, Gabon. September 5, 2012. On the night of Wednesday 4th to Thursday, September 5th, at around 3am, a squad of six people attacked the television studios of TV+ (opposition media) located in Libreville seafront, near Air France office.

After molesting the guardian of the building, causing him a serious head injury and a dislocated right shoulder, and with a cutter and chisel he was able to cut the gate protecting the entrance door of the TV studios, but the armored door was able to resist to the assault and prevented the intrusion of the criminals into the offices of TV+.

The commando than fled because the guardian sitting inside the studios of TV+ was able to immediately alert the other guards from the surrounding buildings, and also the inhabitants of the building were TV+ is located. They immediately called the police, which arrived on the scene to take note of the damage.

After he escaped by night, the same commando, a little later around 4:30 am, was screened at the site where TV+ transmitters are located in Nkembo’s neighbourhood in Libreville, behind St. Michael's Church. He went there to strike again by vandalizing this site of this opposition TV station; as it was already been burned by a commando in the night of August 15^th to the 16^th around 1 am. The twenty guards protecting the Nkembo’s site have to intervene vigorously and face this commando who fled.

Franck Nguema, Chairman and Director General of TV+ Gabon, reminds the national and international communities that his TV station, in less than a month, has been victim of very violent attacks of commandos causing damage estimated around tens of millions of CFA francs.

While Ali Bongo Ondimba then continues to proclaim in his speeches, here and elsewhere, that Gabon is a state of law, and that he is for freedom of expression, opinion and of the press, we should not forget that such acts remind us of the darkest hours of the death squads of dictatorial regimes that have passed through the history of Africa and the world. "Who can believe that Ali Bongo Ondimba is a democrat when his regime is monopolizing the state media for his exclusive propaganda, and it is using anti-democratic methods by physically attacking and gagging private media in order to prevent the opposition from expressing themselves freely? Indeed, the promise of Ali Bongo Ondimba only bind those who believe in them, because in reality we are facing a dictatorship emerging in Gabon since 2009, and it is unfortunate for the development and social cohesion of Gabon, "says Franck Nguema.

Translated from french by CLG.