French courts continue to run after Disclose’s sources, disregarding basic freedoms of the press. Fifteen months after her 39-hour police custody and the search of her home by police officers from French intelligence services (DGSI), our journalist Ariane Lavrilleux has now been summoned on Friday, January 17, 2025, possibly before being indicted for “appropriation and disclosure of a national defense secret.”

This summons for an initial interrogation in the office of a counterterrorism judge is a new milestone in the pressure exerted on journalists who investigate state affairs.

In November 2021, Ariane Lavrilleux, with three other journalists, revealed public interest information on a secret French military operation in Egypt, called “Operation Sirli”. This mission led to the arbitrary execution of hundreds of Egyptian civilians, all against a backdrop of arms sales. For her participation in this investigation, our journalist faces a five-year prison sentence and a €75,000 fine.

Police surveillance

According to the elements of the judicial investigation that were communicated to Ariane Lavrilleux, her actions were tracked by police officers from the DGSI, a service usually designed for counterterrorism and counterespionage. Our journalist was physically monitored during business and private trips; her mobile phone was geolocated in real time; her bank accounts were scrutinized, as were her train ticket purchases and her private communications on social media X. The DGSI also monitored the Disclose office in the Paris region.

Disclose condemns in the strongest terms the misuse of resources allocated to the fight against terrorism. This surveillance operation represents not only a serious attack on the confidentiality of journalists’ sources, “the cornerstone of press freedom”, according to the European Court of Human Rights, but also a violation of our colleague’s privacy.

Since 2018, the year Disclose was created, four of our journalists have been intimidated by French internal intelligence services. A sad record that makes our non-profit editorial team the most attacked French media by French intelligence services. Through these procedures, they have systematically sought to identify the sources who provided Disclose with public interest information. The “Made in France” investigations in 2019, then the “Egypt Papers” in 2021, highlighted France’s arms sales to authoritarian regimes, which then turned them against civilians in Yemen, Egypt and Libya.

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Cover photo: Robin Grassi / Reporters Without Borders, September 20, 2023