• Population: 9,855,000
  • Internet users: 105,000 (2002)
  • Average charge for 20 hours of connection: 34 euros
  • DAI*: 0.14
  • Situation**: middling

Senegal offers better online access than other French-speaking African countries and generally respects freedom of expression in all media, including the Internet.

President calls for fund to encourage Internet use

President Abdoulaye Wade proposed at the December 2003 World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva the establishment of a fund to promote use of the Internet and narrow the digital divide between poor and rich countries. Governments, organisations and individuals would contribute voluntarily to it. The proposal was accepted by most countries but no contributions have yet been received.

Telecommunications monopoly ends

The government announced in late December 2003 it was ending the monopoly of the state-owned telecommunications firm Sonatel. Competition in the sector should now reduce the cost of Internet access. The country has 13 ISPs, more than 150 public access points and is one of the few African countries providing broadband service, launched by Sonatel in March 2003.

Webmaster convicted of libel

Christian Costeaux, webmaster of the tourist information site www.senegalaisement.com, was sentenced in his absence to a year's imprisonment by a court in the southern city of Ziguinchor on 7 January 2004 and fined 600 million CFA francs (915,000 euros) for harming the reputation of the mayor and two hotel-owners from the Casamance region. The site had posted an article from the Senegalese newspaper Walfadjiri saying aides of the mayor had embezzled more than 100 million CFA francs. The website site is still accessible in Senegal. Costeaux does not live in the country and the court issued an international arrest warrant for him.

Links

  • Monitoring centre for information systems and the Internet in Senegal. - www.osiris.sn

* The DAI (Digital Access Index) has been devised by the International Telecommunications Union to measure the access of a country's inhabitants to information and communication technology. It ranges from 0 (none at all) to 1 (complete access).

** Assessment of the situation in each country (good, middling, difficult, serious) is based on murders, imprisonment or harassment of cyber-dissidents or journalists, censorship of news sites, existence of independent news sites, existence of independent ISPs and deliberately high connection charges.

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