More than a week after the questionable arrest of Samira Sabou in her home in Niamey, Niger Republic, the journalist is yet to regain freedom.

On September 30, Sabou was arrested in the presence of her husband for no declared reasons by some law enforcement officers in civilian clothes.

Sabou is a Nigerien journalist based in Niamey, Niger’s capital, who actively makes use of her Facebook page to disseminate news and public commentaries to her over 294,000 followers. The last post on her page was made on the day she was taken away.

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Since the time of her arrest, there has been no clear information about her whereabouts. Family members comb government detention centres endlessly in search of their loved one.

Sabou is the president of the Association of Bloggers for Active Citizenship and has been a target of intimation and harassment long before the country’s junta came on board.

During the days of Mohamed Bazoum, the ousted executive president, the journalist was arrested at different times. In January 2022, she was charged to court under the country’s cybercrime law and handed a suspended prison sentence of one month and fined US$86 for defamation.

Back in 2020, she was also prosecuted for publishing alleged defamatory information on her Facebook page relating to the financial audit of Niger’s military and was subsequently jailed.

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There have been many calls on the country’s leadership and its concerned agencies to account for the whereabouts of the woman and speedily release her.

News reports stated that the country’s judicial police authorities had denied its involvement in the arrest. This development further compounds the difficult climate under which journalists in Niger are forced to practice.