Dakar, August 21, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) calls on Togolese authorities to drop the charges against French journalists Sebastian Perez Pezzani and Gaël Mocaër, and their Togolese fixer, Komi Mawufemo Vedomey, and to release Mocaër and Vedomey who have spent 26 days in detention since they were
arrested
July 27 while filming a documentary in northern Togo.
On August 20, 2026, an investigative judge in Lomé, the Togolese capital,
provisionally released
Pezzani for medical reasons but ordered his passport to be confiscated pending the next appearance of the three journalists to be questioned on the case, their lawyer, Martial Akakpo, told CPJ. Mocaër and Vedomey are detained in a police facility in Lomé.
“Sebastian Perez Pezzani, Gaël Mocaër, and Komi Mawufemo Vedomey have been deprived of their freedom and prevented from carrying out their journalistic work for 26 days through an excessive and prolonged legal process, once again highlighting the Togolese authorities’ reluctance to allow journalists to practice their profession freely in the country,” said Moussa Ngom, CPJ’s Francophone Africa representative. “Togolese authorities should lift Pezzani’s house-arrest, immediately release Mocaër and Vedomey, and drop the charges against them.”
Tony Comiti, the founder of the production company
Tony Comiti Productions
, told CPJ that the journalists were on assignment to produce “a travel and adventure documentary for the ‘
Les Routes de l’impossible
’ series, broadcast on
France Télévisions
.”
He
told
French broadcaster France Inter that the journalists and the fixer were placed under house arrest at a local hotel upon their arrest, had their footage confiscated, and were accused of espionage. The journalists were released after Togolese judicial authorities reviewed their footage, but they were arrested again two hours later.
The lawyer told CPJ that Pezzani and Mocaër were
charged
on Monday, 13 days after their transfer to Lom
… [more]
