{"id":42973,"date":"2026-08-18T14:57:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T12:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=42973"},"modified":"2026-08-18T14:57:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T12:57:24","slug":"mali-court-hands-heavy-sentences-to-civil-society-figures","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/mali-court-hands-heavy-sentences-to-civil-society-figures\/","title":{"rendered":"Mali court hands heavy sentences to civil society figures \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prominent Malian activist and radio commentator Mohamed Youssouf Bathily, widely known as &#8220;Ras Bath&#8221;, and his co-accused Rokia Doumbia, known as &#8220;Rose la Vie Ch\u00e8re&#8221;, have been sentenced to 10 years in prison, with three years suspended.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The verdict was handed down by a Malian court on Monday after finding both figures guilty of criminal association and damaging the credit of the state through information and communication technologies.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Legal representatives for the pair swiftly rejected the judgment, dismissing the charges as baseless.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These accusations are entirely fictional,&#8221; defense counsel stated following the ruling, confirming plans to lodge an appeal with the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Political analyst and journalist Oussouf Diagola highlighted that the heavy sentences reflect heightened legal and political scrutiny faced by civil society voices in the country.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ras Bath and Doumbia now have the option to take their case to the Supreme Court, the highest judicial authority in Mali, to challenge the convictions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14644,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-42973","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Mali Activists Ras Bath and Rose la Vie Ch\u00e8re sentenced to 10 years in prison","published_date":"2026-08-18 14:56:58","news_description":"Mali Activists Ras Bath and Rose la Vie Ch\u00e8re sentenced to 10 years in prison","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42974,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42973\/revisions\/42974"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=42973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}