Chirac urges end to Ivorian hatred

Jean Helene had reported from Africa for many years

French President Jacques Chirac has called on Ivory Coast's leaders to end the climate of hatred in the war-riven country after a French reporter was shot dead in the main city, Abidjan.

"I call very firmly... for the Ivorian authorities to come to their senses a little and to first put an end to these hotbeds of hatred and aggression," Mr Chirac said on a visit to Niger.

Without naming names, he also condemned the "irrational, irresponsible behaviour of certain Ivorian leaders".

As he was speaking, the body of Jean Helene, a Radio France Internationale (RFI) correspondent, was being flown home to France.

A police officer is being held in Abidjan in connection with his death.

Mr Chirac said Helene's killer should be punished in an "exemplary fashion".

The French president, who is on a whistle-stop tour of Africa, will visit Mali on Friday where he will spend time in the ancient caravan oasis of Timbuktu, before holding talks with President Amadou Toumani Toure in the capital Bamako.

Police 'impunity'

Foreign, and especially French, journalists have been harassed by officials and security forces in the Ivory Coast since September last year when a rebellion cut the country in two.

Chirac is on a whistle-stop tour of Africa

Some 3,800 French troops are currently policing a buffer zone between the two sides.

London-based rights group Amnesty International has said that Helene's killing shows the "atmosphere of impunity" in which Ivorian security forces were operating since last year's uprising, the said.

Helene was shot in the head after an argument near the national police headquarters in Abidjan on Tuesday as he waited to interview a group of arrested opposition militants, according to the Ivorian police.

They have arrested one officer, Sergeant Theodore Sery, over the killing and investigators are questioning witnesses, said police commissioner Ange Kessi.

Helene's remains were due to arrive later on Thursday in Mulhouse, his home town in eastern France.

Pressure on media

Ivorian authorities have condemned the killing, with President Laurent Gbagbo calling it an "ignoble murder."

Threats, physical attacks, arrests, newspaper offices ransacked... It is the same story for the news media each time there is a crisis in Ivory Coast Reporters sans Frontieres

But foreign journalists in Ivory Coast and lobby groups accuse the authorities and the pro-government Ivorian press of stirring up resentment of the foreign media by accusing them of backing the rebels who hold the largely Muslim north.

"Threats, physical attacks, arrests, newspaper offices ransacked, radio transmitters sabotaged, xenophobic excesses," the Paris-based lobby group Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) wrote recently in its annual report.

"It is the same story for the news media each time there is a crisis in Ivory Coast," it said.

On Monday, RSF issued its second World Press Freedom rankings, placing Ivory Coast 137th out of 166 countries.

It was one of three states which had plunged the most in the rankings over the previous 12 months.