Lome, Togo - The government of Togo has ordered independent media sources, including a Catholic radio, to suspend their operations, according to a news report by a Vatican-based news agency.
"Even Radio Maria, the country's main Catholic radio station, has been told to suspend its programmes," Fides reported, attributing the ban to the Togolese military. "All independent means of information have been shut down, even access to the Internet."
Tension was still high, with at least 30 people killed in the capital Lome alone in clashes between the police and protesters following disputed results of the April 24, 2005 elections.
Faure Gnassingb_yad_ was declared winner of the presidential vote, against the opposition candidate Emmanuel Akitani Bob.
The agency said that on Saturday, April 30, 2005, army troops surrounded the home of Jean Pierre Fabre, General Secretary of the main opposition party Union of Forces for Change. The same day a gang of armed men set fire to a German centre in Lome, the Goethe Institute.
The crisis so far been political.