Editor Michel Ngady charged with "obstruction"

Editor and media activist, Michel Alkhaly Ngady, has been charged with "obstruction of the law and the institutions of the Republic" for his critism of the Central African Republic's High Council of Communication's appointment of new members who did not meet its own standards for membership. Ngady, editor of the private weekly paper Temps Nouveaux, was charged on 26 March 2007 by the prosecutor of Bangui, and has been imprisoned for 16 days without bail. The prosecutor has requested that the court sentence him to two years in jail, and the case will be decided upon today, 2 April.