“Reporterre” media denounces new obstacle to freedom to inform

Assimilated to anti-OGM activists whose action he covered, a journalist from the independent information site must appear on December 7 for acts of voluntary degradation.

by Aude Dassonville

On December 7, Grégoire Souchay will go to the Rodez court to repeat what he said to the gendarmes who auditioned him on February 24: if he was, on November 10, 2021, on the premises of the seed Ragt in Calmont, in Aveyron, it is because he covered the action of voluntary relevant people to report. As a journalist, he was there to document and photograph activists bringing “out of use of the seeds of varieties made tolerant to pesticides”, as evidenced by his article and his photos posted on November 12 2021 on the environmental and societal information site.

These explanations did not prevent the gendarmerie from reproaching this journalist for the ten years of seniority, holder of a press card, freelance freelancer and liberation, for having “fraudulently subtract from the bags containing seeds of rapeseed “and” voluntarily degraded or deteriorated several bags of seed “, thus assimilating it to an activist. “There is no reason to continue me, except to harm a media,” protests Mr. Souchay.

The journalist recalls that “time and money lost in this procedure” are incompatible with “journalistic work” for which readers grant their donations to reporter. “In a way, we can speak of a gag procedure,” says Hervé Kempf, the editor -in -chief of the site. “This is intimidation”, adds M e Alexandre Faro, who must already defend the independent media in two other files.

“This would create a precedent”

In June 2020, a journalist had spent ten hours in police custody and received a fine of 750 euros for following demonstrators on the track of Paris-Orly airport. A hierarchical appeal to the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, had remained a dead letter. In October of the same year, two reporters had been fined for 450 euros during an action of environmentalists at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport.

Other journalists present (France 3, Mediapart, AFP …, according to situations) have not been worried, notes the lawyer, who annoys these “obstacles to the freedom to inform” , targeting a “small media”, in front of three different courts (of police, criminal and correctional). “It is the very culture of the freedom to inform that is threatened,” said Hervé Kempf.

He cites, in addition to these procedures, the two recent court decisions preventing Mediapart from publishing an investigation into the mayor of Saint-Etienne, and reflections.info of new articles on Altice, based on data hacked (appeal decisions are expected on Wednesday, November 30). If convicted there was to be, “in no case would we accept, because it would create a precedent, and it is not about it,” adds Hervé Kempf. An information and support meeting is scheduled for Monday, December 5, on the Paris Labor Stock Exchange.

/Media reports cited above.