Monday, August 24, 2026 - Two French documentary filmmakers and their Togolese fixer have been jailed in Togo after more than three weeks in custody in the West African nation , an advocacy group said Thursday, amid strained relations between the government and French media.
Reporters Without Borders said that filmmakers Gaël Mocaër
and Sebastian Perez Pezzani and fixer Fred Vedomey were placed in pretrial
detention Monday and charged with making “false declarations” in immigration
procedures.
The Paris-based media freedom group, known by its French
acronym RSF, called for their immediate release.
Mocaër and Perez Pezzani were filming an episode of a
documentary series for a French public television network when police arrested
the three on July 27 in Kara, northern Togo, RSF said.
Northern Togo has been plagued in recent years by attacks
from armed groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.
The detentions come as Togo has moved closer to Russia and
to Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, three military-led countries that have
expelled or sidelined French forces and strengthened relations with Moscow.
Russia and Togo signed a military cooperation agreement last
year providing for joint exercises and military training.
Togo has also restricted French media. In June 2025,
authorities suspended broadcasts by French international outlets Radio
France Internationale and France 24 for three months, accusing them of
inaccurate and biased reporting during their coverage of protests against
leader Faure Gnassingbé .
RSF said that the filmmakers charged on Monday had applied
for work visas and received authorization from Togo’s Ministry of Tourism,
Culture and Arts.
Culture Minister Isaac Tchiakpé rejected RSF’s assertion
that the filmmakers had received authorization from his ministry to carry out
the documentary shoot.
“They would not have been detained if they had had the
proper authorizations and followed the required procedures,” Tchiakpé told The
Associated Press.
Togo’s media regulator, the HARC, said it had received no
accreditation request from the filmmakers or France Télévisions, and hadn’t
been informed of their filming in northern Togo.
RSF said that police seized the crew’s equipment and
detained the three, briefly releasing them July 30 before rearresting them and
transferring them to the capital, Lomé.
RSF called the proceedings “unjustified” and
“disproportionate,” and said that Perez Pezzani has serious health problems
requiring immediate medical attention.
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