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July 14, 2025 – West Africa –
In a case that has alarms ringing across West African press freedom circles, Beninese investigative journalist and rights defender Hugues Comlan Sosoukpe was allegedly lured to Abidjan under pretenses and forcibly handed over to Beninese authorities during a professional mission.
Sosoukpe, the director of online investigative outlet Olofofo, had been living in exile in Togo since 2019 after obtaining refugee status. He was invited by Côte d’Ivoire’s Ministry of Digital Transition to attend the Ivoire Tech Forum in Abidjan from July 9–11, 2025. On July 10, while staying at the Palm Beach hotel, he was reportedly arrested by Ivorian police, escorted directly to the VIP terminal at Félix Houphouët-Boigny Airport, and placed on a private flight to Cotonou.
Arriving in Benin on July 11, he was taken into custody by the Court for the Repression of Economic and Terrorist Crimes (CRIET), charged with “harassment via electronic means,” “rebellion,” and “apologie du terrorisme,” before being placed in pre-trial detention at Ouidah prison.
Sosoukpe and his lawyers have decried the operation as a “trap” set by Ivorian authorities to hand him over. His legal defense asserts he is actually Togolese and that the extradition violated his refugee status guaranteed under international law.
Both Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Front Line Defenders have condemned the incident as an egregious violation of refugee protection and press freedom. RSF labelled it a “manifest complicity” by Ivorian officials, while Front Line Defenders called it an “illegal abduction” that tramples non-refoulement principles, citing articles from the 1951 Refugee Convention.
Governments of Benin and Côte d’Ivoire have remained largely silent. Beninese officials, via spokesperson Wilfried Léandre Houngbédji, framed the case as necessary for national security and accused Sosoukpe and other activists of spreading “enemy propaganda”.
As of July 14, 2025, Sosoukpe was scheduled to appear before a judge. Advocacy groups are demanding his immediate unconditional release, the withdrawal of all charges, full respect for his physical and legal rights, and clearer accountability for what’s being called an abuse of cross-border cooperation.
This alarming incident underscores an increasingly repressive trend in parts of West Africa, where refugee journalists and human rights defenders face intensified risks, including rendition under the guise of diplomatic or bureaucratic cooperation.
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