N'DJAMENA, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Chad's government is intimidating, harassing and arresting without warrants journalists who criticise its war against eastern rebels, Amnesty International said on Monday. In a report listing recent arrests and cases of official harassment, Amnesty said local media representatives reporting on the conflict were being accused by the government of being "enemies of the state" and sympathetic to the rebel groups. For more than two years, several rebel groups have been fighting a hit-and-run guerrilla campaign against President Idriss Deby's government in a conflict in eastern Chad that is linked to the war in neighbouring Sudan's Darfur region. The fighting has inflamed tensions between Arab and non-Arab communities and rival ethnic clans, sparking raids and massacres last year in which hundreds of people were killed. A peace deal signed in October collapsed, leading to heavy renewed fighting between Chad's government and the rebels. Journalists and media organisations who criticised Deby's handling of the war were now the target of a government crackdown, Amnesty said in a statement sent to Reuters. "Chadian journalists are being subjected to intimidation, harassment and arrest without warrant," said Tawanda Hondora, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Africa Programme. "It is clear that the Chadian government is feeling increasingly threatened by independent reporting of its conduct in the conflict with the armed opposition, particularly in eastern Chad -- and is taking its anxiety out on the country's media," he added. There was no immediate response from the Chadian authorities. But the government has in the past imposed emergency powers on conflict hotspots like the east, which have included the explicit authority to control media coverage. Amnesty said that earlier this month, government police raided and shut down the FM Liberte radio station and "illegally arrested" senior staff. Another FM Liberte journalist had also been threatened by an armed security agent, it added. In December, Nadjikimo Benoudjita, editor of the weekly newspaper Notre Temps, was arrested after the paper published an article he wrote which called Deby a "war criminal". He was later charged with inciting tribal hatred and was freed but will be summoned to reappear in court later this month, Amnesty said. (Reporting and writing by Pascal Fletcher; editing by Keith Weir)
Soldiers from the joint United Nations-African Union (UNAMID) peacekeeping force guard a supply convoy leaving El Fasher in Sudan's Darfur region, January 13, 2008. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said this ...
