Published on : 21/09/2022 – 11:18
The Senegalese television series rebels : A fight for unity, has been deprogrammed. The first episodes were originally scheduled to air from Wednesday, September 21. But the production claims to have been “ formal notice by the Cinematography Department, to stop filming and remove the trailer from its YouTube channel. A series inspired by a sensitive subject: the conflict in Casamance with separatist rebels for four decades.
This is the story of an ambitious young politician promoted to the position of Chief of Staff to the President. ” He will find himself at the heart of a conspiracy at the top of the state whose goal is to create instability in Casamance “, indicates the production in its presentation. A mine de zircon is under attack, against a backdrop of foreign interests.
But on September 8, the production company Marodi receives the formal notice. Its CEO, Serigne Massamba Ndour, is resigned: “ They didn’t say anything specific. They just said: “risks of public order disturbances”. If they had told us: “it’s the title, it’s the content, it’s such a sentence”, maybe we could correct… But they don’t even want to watch the episodes. So we stopped filming and we put almost 40 people on technical unemployment. »
“They had to supervise us, not censor us”
An incomprehensible decision for the producer, even if he recognizes that the themes addressed are audacious. ” It’s only a fiction, so we thought we had the right to deal with a subject on Casamance that deserves to be highlightedexplains Serigne Massamba Ndour. We know this is a taboo question. But today, we are responsible enough to deal with this issue. We, they had to supervise us, not censor us. We believe this is an abuse of power. »
In reality, the Senegalese army had launched in March security operations in Casamanceagainst the separatist rebellion of the MFDC.
►Also read: From Casamance to Aulnay sous-Bois, “Boy Diola” traces the story of Yancouba Diémé’s father