French Filmmakers Held in Togo: A Press Freedom Case With Broader Stakes
Three men involved in a French television documentary — filmmakers Gaël Mocaër and Sebastian Perez Pezzani, plus their Togolese fixer Fred Vedomey — have been in custody in Togo since their arrest on July 27, 2025. A fixer is a local contact who helps foreign journalists navigate a country: arranging interviews, translating, and handling logistics. The three were formally placed in pre-trial detention on August 17, 2025, at a law-enforcement facility near Lomé, Togo's capital. As of August 19, 2026, they remained in custody The Washington Post.
Togolese authorities charged Mocaër and Pezzani with 'false declarations' — essentially, accusations that the men provided incorrect information on official paperwork. Yet according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), an international press-freedom watchdog, the journalists held valid work visas and had authorization to film. The production company Tony Comiti Productions stated the men had all required documents and were in full compliance with Togolese administrative regulations BBC News.
The trio was filming an episode of 'Les Routes de l'impossible,' a documentary series broadcast by France Télévisions, in Kara, northern Togo, at the time of their arrest. Vedomey was detained in connection with the same case BBC News.
RSF condemned the legal proceedings as unjustified and disproportionate RSF. The organization's director general, Thibaut Bruttin, noted the detention had lasted more than 20 days and called for the immediate release of all three men. RSF also reported that Pezzani was suffering from serious health problems requiring immediate medical attention BBC News.
The detention fits a pattern of friction between Lomé and French media. In June 2025, Togo suspended French broadcasters France 24 and RFI for three months over allegations of spreading 'inaccurate and biased' information following anti-government protests. In the year prior to that suspension, French journalist Thomas Dietrich was arrested while covering electoral campaigning in Togo and later expelled from the country, according to the International Press Institute BBC News.
Some local reports have linked the current detention to Ferdinand Ayité, a Togolese investigative journalist living in exile in France. Ayité was arrested in Togo in 2021 and later left the country BBC News.
Togo ranks 97th out of 180 countries on RSF's press freedom index BBC News.
The broader context here is a sustained tightening of Togo's information space, calibrated to limit external scrutiny of domestic political dynamics. The use of 'false declarations' charges against fully credentialed foreign journalists introduces an administrative-legal mechanism that can hold press workers in detention without alleging espionage or subversion. Think of it as a bureaucratic choke point: the paperwork becomes the grounds for prosecution, even when the paperwork appears to have been in order. For organizations operating across the region, the gap between holding a valid work visa and being shielded from prosecution appears to be widening in Lomé.
What this means for European broadcasters is a direct operational strain on documentary production in a country that remains a logistical hub for West African reporting. When local fixers face the same or greater legal jeopardy as visiting foreign correspondents, the risk calculus for on-the-ground journalism shifts, potentially degrading the quality and frequency of reporting from the region.
