Press Releases :
FASHION
STYLIST HOSTAGE TO INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY
(continued 3)
(Tuesday
September 26th, 2001)
WHICH
ARE THE CHARGES AGAINST OUMOU SY ?
First
deny justice, now “abusive jail”.
Fashion designer and Ntic’s pionieer begins her 27th day of jail.
Judge’s
instruction is over but that is the silence
After
27 days of jail, réal charges against Oumou Sy, fashion designer and
ntic’s pionneer in Africa stay unknown. Judge’s
instruction is over and only stays gossips. No complains against Oumou Sy. Deny of justice stays obvious.
More, silent and unanswered judge seems to mean « abusive jail ».
Senegalese
state offered Oumou Sy to justice’s arms.
The case became a mediatic show, both diplomatic between Libya and
Senegal and both « people » through a fantasy of international sex
racket.
Wrong ways leaded by senegalese state which always interfere and delay the way of justice in this case which is now a state, public, national and international affair.
To
keep abusively in jail Oumou Sy is a dangerous game and taking a risk of
becoming a perfect symbol of an injury to human rights, individual freedom and
artists security.
That
is a national and international trauma when this sad affair throw a deep shadow
on the big spair in the new senegalese democracy and the project of a dynamic
panafricanism.
Iernational
Support Comitee of Oumou Sy,
with international personalities as France Gall (France), Bibi Russell (Bengla
Desh), Anna Getaneh (Usa-Ethiopie), Cheikh Oumar Sissoko (Mali) ou Alphadi
(Niger) is making various acts through the world.
Contact :
Cybercafé Vis @ Vis - 18 Rue Stephenson - 75018 Paris
Tel
: 00 33 1 42 62 86 36 - jean.deudeville@visavis.tm.fr
For a chronology of events or more details,
please do not hesitate to contact us via michel@metissacana.sn
and tel: 00 221 822 20 43
or check out Oumou Sy’s webpages http://www.metissacana.sn/oumousy
FASHION
STYLIST HOSTAGE TO INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY ? (continued)
OUMOU
SY IS STILL IN PRISON SINCE AUGUST 30, 2001
The
question “who benefits from this denial of justice”
still
remains unanswered.
Oumou
Sy is still in prison, where she has been held since August 30, 2001, subject to
a denial of justice on account of the Sengalese State. She is accused of
complicity in a sex raquet involving procuring, on the sole basis of rumors,
because she took part in finding 100 fashion models intended to participate in a
grand African fashion show that actually took place in Tripoli on September 1 in
celebration of Colonel Khadafi’s 32nd anniversary of his ascension
to power. The 100 fashion models should seemingly have been kidnapped at that
occasion by a supposedly existing international sex raquet network with the help
of an apparently suspect Libyan plane.
Since the beginning of
the incarceration of the African stylist and Internet pioneer, Ms. Oumou Sy, the
Senegalese and Libyan states have come to the conclusion that there is no
diplomatic problem between them and that the so called Affair of the 100 fashion
models is the act of people intending to spoil the image of both countries.
The official communiqué
after the meeting between Senegal’s head of State, together with several
Ministers, and the Libyan emissaries does not mention anything about a presumed
international sex raquet network. Nonetheless, the communiqué states that the
authors of the supposed plot are amongst the people currently subject to the
ongoing investigation ....
Following the charges
of complicity in a sex raquet, the stakes are now to implicate the African
stylist and Internet pioneer, Ms. Oumou Sy, in a grim affair of political plot
against her own country and against African Unity despite being one of ist most
potent symbols.
Public opinion now
craves for truth, while also being informed by the local press about certain
facts that smear with lack of credibility the actual disgraceful diplomatic
ballet :
-
an international fashion show did take place in
Tripoli on Saturday, September 1, which legitimizes the presence of Libyan
officials in the organization of the casting carried out in broad daylight by
Oumou Sy and directed by the Campbell sisters ;
-
on top of this, official Senegalese authorities
were indeed informed by the Libyan state of the coming, at Libya‘s expense, of
Senegalese fashion models ;
-
and even the Libyan plane that was to carry the
fashion models, apparently illegal upon landing, was official (flight plan,
authorisation to land, police and security checks upon landing were all ok). It
therefore was logical that the Libyan Boeing 727 should depart before the Civil
Aviation authorities had arrived to any conclusions following their
investigation, though only with 52 passengers (the Thionk Essyl dancers and
craftsmen from Soumbedioune) on board. The 100 fashion models having been
prevented from leaving.
-
finally, no information or revelation concerning
a link with an international sex raquet network has appeared with either the
ongoing investigation, or the hearings and confrontations organized by the judge
between the Campbell sisters, the fashion models and Oumou Sy.
Many are wondering if
this sex raquet network and the plot between the two countries is not imaginary.
In the meantime, Ms
Oumou Sy is in prison since August 30, based only on rumors, and has been
brought before the prosecution by :
a Minister of the
Interior convinced he has saved 100 girls from the grips of a so-called
international sex raquet network whose accomplice is Oumou Sy,
and a Minister of
Foreign Affairs persuaded that a Libyan plane had landed without the knowledge
of the government in order to kidnap, in broad daylight, 100 women including two
of Oumou Sy’s daughters, the stylist Oumou Sy herself, her secretary and
students from her school, Ateliers Leydi.
The Senegalese State
persists in its wrong doing by upholding the denial of justice, which has taken
the form of a violation of individual liberties and constitutes a dangerous
deviation of Senegalese democracy to the detriment of one of Africa’s living
symbols of what is positive and dynamic.
The questions asked
still remain without answers :
Who is the real target
? Is this a fiasco or a set-up ? Who really benefits from all of this ?
The intense emotions
and rapid international mobilisation are at par with Oumou Sy’s personality
and the seriousness of the situation. This mobilisation is growing daily, both
in Senegal and internationally, and goes well beyond the cultural community,
also embracing the world of investment, that of international institutions and
development cooperation structures.
The Senegalese State,
by throwing Oumou Sy into the hands of the judicial system, has started a
process in which it, given its executive status, should not act upon. If the
vagaries of the judicial process has delayed Oumou Sy’s right to provisional
freedom, how will the Senegalese State respond to the African stylist and
Internet pioneer’s eventual absence, because of her current imprisonment, from
international events in which she is to carry out her normal work as cultural
and development ambassador of her continent in the coming days.
For
a chronology of events or more details, please do not hesitate to contact us via
michel@metissacana.sn and tel: 00 221 822 20 43
or check out Oumou Sy’s webpages http://www.metissacana.sn/oumousy
PRESS
RELEASE – MONDAY SEPTEMBER 10th,
2001
FASHION STYLIST
HOSTAGE TO INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY ?
The
denial of justice which fashion stylist Oumou Sy is facing in Senegal rests on a
totally nebulous contradiction in the diplomatic relationships between Senegal
and Libya and a completely imaginary link with an international network of
prostitution racket.
The
prejudice to the international fashion designer, now imprisoned since last
August 30th, is very high. She was brutally forced to end her work
and other activities and has seen her integrity injured, this amplified largely
by the national and international press and other media which has been
significantly misoriented onto false paths by the Senegalese authorities.
The
attack on individual liberties is significantly proportional to the intense
emotions that this affair raises at a national and an international level and to
Oumou Sy’s shining reputation which stands, throughout the world, as a symbol
of a positive Africa.
The
precipitation with which the political body in Senegal managed a situation as
serious as this one cannot reassure the Senegalese public opinion, left
bewildered and uncertain with what has become a sordid „State affair“.
On
September 1st, 2001, in celebration of the 32nd
anniversary of the acsension to power of Khadafi in Libya, an African fashion
show hosting hundreds of models, flown in from all over Africa, took place in
Tripoli.
The
Senegalese delegation did not participate in the festivities, as it was held up
by the state police at Dakar international airport. The facts : the airplane,
purposefully engaged by Libyan Airlines for the occasion, was declared as having
illegally landed at Dakar international airport ; the fashion models were
assimilated to prostitutes ; internationally famous stylist, Ms. Oumou Sy, has
been imprisoned since Thursday, August 30th, 2001, under charges of
complicity in a sex racket.
In
the meantime, it turns out the Libyan Airlines‘ plane was regularly chartered
and in accordance with a flight plan and authorisation to land. The „accused“
plane departed with a delegation of Senegalese dancers and craftsmen (i.e. 52
passangers in a Boeing 727) !
In
the aftermath of this „affair“, Senegal and Libya are at the edge of
terminating their diplomatic relationships.
Since
the beginning, the media was directed by official sources towards unfound
certitudes ; which has led to a catastrophic campaign regarding the fashion
industry in general and modelling in particular. It has also led to a very high
prejudice to stylist Oumou Sy.
Fiasco
or planned coup ? Who are the beneficiaries ? Will the often evoked „raison
d’Etat“ allow us know the answers ?
The
cultural community mobilized immediately to support Ms. Oumou Sy with messages
and testimonies (e.g. the singers and muscians Youssou Ndour, Baaba Maal, Wasis
Diop, Demba Dia, Fallou Dieng, sculptor Ousmane Sow, movie directors Moussa Touré,
Cheikh Oumar Sissoko, Pierre Yémaogo, writers Hamidou Dia, Alioune Badara Gueye,
choreographer Germaine Acogny and many Senegalese living abroad).
The
Metissacana website has been inondated with support messages by people who do
not know Oumou Sy personally ; people who are very uneasy with the fact that
their country is able to imprison citizens based on simple rumors, and the risk
of seriously undermining the integrity and professional lives of these citizens.
An
initiative by numerous French and European personalities has set up an
International Support Committee that is now getting fully organised in order to
drive for Oumou Sy’s liberation and full rehabilitation.
Ms.
Oumou Sy, award winner of the Prins Claus Foundation Prix, winner of the French
RFI Net Africa Prix, founder of Metissacana (West Africa’s first cyber-café
and leading ISP), organiser of the SIMOD-International Fashion Week and the
yearly Carnival (both in Dakar), living symbol of a positive Africa, has become
the hostage of international diplomacy and may be a sacrificial lamb of the
burning grounds of African Unity, despite the fact that it so needs her as well
as all of Africa’s vitality.
For
a chronology of events or more details, please do not hesitate to contact us via
michel@metissacana.sn or check out Oumou
Sy’s webpages http://\www.metissacana.sn\oumousy