The United States warmly congratulated France today on the success of its "Operation Serval" in Mali but Reporters Without Borders regrets that France has had similar success with its goal of heavily restricting direct media coverage of the military intervention.

"The French authorities, supported by their Malian counterparts, have achieved their ‘zero image of the war front' media objective for Operation Serval by strictly controlling access to information," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

"Excessive citing of security grounds is seriously curtailing media freedom. While we can understand the French military's stated desire to prevent reporters being abducted or attacked, the defence ministry should conform to the demands of democratic values by allowing the media to have direct access to the news rather than keeping them at a distance, as it has done until now." (...)

[Read the full article published by Reporters Without Borders]