Senegalese authorities should unconditionally release four journalists from the online news outlet Allô Sénégal, who are detained on defamation and incitement charges, and stop criminalizing the work of the media, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.

Agents from the Criminal Investigations Division (DIC), a branch of the Senegalese police, arrested six Allô Sénégal journalists from the media outlet’s premises in the western Thiés region on November 11 and transferred them to the DIC police station in the capital Dakar, according to news reports.

The arrests followed a complaint by Senegal’s minister of tourism and leisure, Mame Mbaye Kan Niang, in relation to a November 9 Allô Sénégal broadcast that discussed allegations that Niang committed adultery.

The outlet later removed the report, and in a November 12 YouTube video, Allô Sénégal apologized to Niang, stating that the report was inaccurate.

A Dakar court charged four of the journalists—news presenter Ndèye Astou Bâ, columnist Papa El Hadji Omar Yally, camera operator Daouda Sow, and manager Maniane Sène Lô—with defamation, public insults, and usurpation of the position of a journalist on November 17, according to their lawyer, Famara Faty, who spoke to CPJ. 

They were also charged with incitement to the crime of murder without effect—which under Senegalese law means that the alleged verbal provocation was not followed by an action—and advocating for the crime of murder for comments made during the broadcast claiming that the penalty for Niang’s alleged adultery under Islamic law would be death. Faty said the Islamic provisions on adultery are not applied in Senegal.