Another member of the panel believes that obstacles to Freedom of Expression are not as minor and isolated as depicted. At the height of the political and military crisis, Ivorians could not display their geographic or ethnic origin without fear. In 2004, during “Operation Dignity” launched by the authorities to regain control, journalists and editorial teams (Le Patriote, Le Nouveau Réveil, 24 Heures, Le Libéral...) were attacked in Abidjan by the so-called “Young Patriots” described as a “deviationist group” by a panel member. The young supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo also singled themselves out in January 2006 with the occupation of RTI (Ivorian radio and television network) and a series of attacks on journalists and media outlets favourable to the opposition parties and the Forces Nouvelles. They were then demanding the departure of the Peace-Keeping Forces and the Force Licorne (French Forcesin the Ivory Coast) from Ivory Coast. At the judicial level, the depenalization of press offences does not prevent the Public Prosecutor from imprisoning journalists, by use of procedural tricks, such as summoning them at the end of the week and placing them in police custody over the weekend. On 27 February 2007, the director of publications and a journalist of the paper Nouveau Réveil, respectively Denis Kah Zion and André Silver Konan, were summoned to appear before the investigation brigade of the national gendarmerie and held for questioning for “offence to the Head of State” following an article published a week earlier. On the same day, journalists of the daily newspaper Inter, the editor-in-chief Charles d’Almeida and the political correspondent Hyppolite Oulaï were also taken in for questioning by the gendarmerie regarding an article implicating the President of the Republic in a case of illegal toxic waste dumping in Abidjan. The fact remains that well before the political and military crisis and under the 1991 law, journalists in Ivory Coast were experiencing a more disturbing period, marked by the severe sentencing of journalists to heavy imprisonment terms8. It was during this period that a Minister, General Gaston Ouassenan Koné, imposed an inadmissible corporal punishment on the journalist Aboudramane Sangaré of La Voie for a headline (A-fa Kaya) in which allusions were being made to the honour of his family. 8 In 1994, the director of publications of Le Patriote Hamed Bakayoko, the director of publications of La voie Aboudramane Sangaré and the journalists Souleymane T. Senn, Jacques Préjean, César Etou and Freedom Neruda received jail sentences ranging from 1 to 3 years for various charges. 76 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER IVORY COAST 2009