The Reporters Without Borders association (RSF) announced on Tuesday April 13 that it had lodged a complaint and sent a request for police protection for journalist Morgan Large, specializing in Breton agribusiness, following the “
sabotage
” of her car end of March.
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The journalist from
Radio Kreiz Breizh (RKB)
, a bilingual French-Breton community radio station installed in Rostrenen (Côtes-d'Armor), noticed on March 31 that one of the rear wheels of her car had been unbolted.
“
According to the testimony of the Morgan Large mechanic, whose complaint refers, it could not have been accidental.
This is indeed a sabotage which therefore stems from a deliberate desire to attack the physical integrity of the journalist and which endangered the journalist and all the users of her vehicle, including her daughter,
”RSF wrote in a press release.
"
This act of sabotage is only the latest in a long series, but it shows that a threshold has been crossed in malice, which justifies the opening of a criminal investigation and, as RSF asks the prosecutor, that the journalist also benefits from police protection and an emergency telephone number to allow rapid intervention in the event of imminent danger
, ”continues the association.
"
For RSF, it is quite exceptional to ask for police protection for journalists in France,
" said a spokesperson.
RSF also asks that a service other than the local gendarmerie be seized of the case, because of the "
tense social climate in Rostrenen and its surroundings
".
Between 500 and 1,000 people demonstrated last week in Rostrenen to defend the freedom to inform and in support of Morgan Large.
In addition, RSF and Morgan Large sent a complaint by registered letter to the public prosecutor of Saint-Brieuc for an investigation to be opened.
The complaint against X denounces facts of "
destruction, degradation or deterioration of property belonging to others by the effect of any means likely to create a danger for people
" and of "
concerted interference with freedom of expression.
".
The complaint details the pressure and intimidation to which the journalist and her radio station have been subjected in recent months, in particular the intoxication of her dog, the phone calls at night to her home, the opening of the enclosure for her animals. and the deterioration of the doors of the
RKB
premises
.