Nevertheless, Guinea boasts a lively private press that emerged, along with multiparty democracy, in the early 1990s. Guinean journalists faced harassment, abusive detention, and even exile in reprisal for their reporting, while publications suffered arbitrary suspensions and closure. Independent publications face exorbitant licensing and production costs, along with the challenge of a national illiteracy rate estimated at over 70 percent of the country's six million people. Under Article 26 of the 1991 Press Code, newspaper publishers who fail to disclose production and distribution schedules to authorities at the start of every election campaign can be charged with sedition. Article 51 compels reporters to reveal their sources to the state prosecutor's office, if asked to do so.
Defamation is considered a criminal offense unless proven otherwise.
The CNC acted in response to complaints from several prominent businessmen who had been criticized in the two papers. Conde was jailed in December 1998, one day after the last presidential election. In September, after nearly two years of systematically censored trial coverage, Conde was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. Meanwhile, as tensions mounted between Guinea and neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone, government officials became vocal in their condemnation of the independent press. And though the country does boast a few rural, community-based radio stations, their range is usually limited to a village or two.