Chad 2.2. Access of citizens to national and international media sources is not limited by the state authorities. ANALYSIS: Access to national and international sources is not forbidden. However, when certain sensitive events occur and the listeners cannot tune in to international stations, such situation is interpreted as censorship. Access to telephone is disconnected in the case of certain events (for instance a threat of a coup plot or a rebel attack). We haven’t experienced the disconnection of internet during those events. GRADES Individual grades: 4, 3, 2, 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2 Average: 2, 4 2.3. There are efforts to widen the distribution of the written press, particularly in the rural areas. ANALYSIS: Efforts are being made but there are problems with distribution to the communities in the rural areas. Only 4 or 5 newspapers are sold in the major cities of the provinces. A study on text messaging has been conducted by the publisher of the Private Media Association of Chad (PMAC) which revealed that the cost of implementation is high adding doubts to its implementation. Although French is an official language, the majority of the Chadian population is illiterate (80%), which restricts access to information largely published in French. The other official language is literary Arabic. Some newspapers have been published in this language, but couldn’t survive due to limited number of Chadian who can read literary Arab. The extremely poor 50 The African Media Barometer (AMB) - Chad 2007