Police in the Ivory Coast have arrested three journalists on charges of stealing secret documents about a judicial inquiry into corruption in the country’s Coffee and Cocoa Bourse.

Le Nouveau Courrier on Tuesday reportedly carried as its front page story an article detailing the contents and results of a report on the ongoing investigation into the graft allegations.

Authorities on Tuesday arrested the editor, managing editor and director of publications at the newspaper and accused them of stealing judicial documents. According to local media, the police asked the journalists for the source of the documents, which they refused to divulge.

The public prosecutor had said that the journalists would be held for the legal maximum of 48 hours for questioning and would be charged today.

Over twenty officials from the Coffee and Cocoa Bourse were arrested in 2008 after a sweeping investigation into alleged widespread corruption in the government body. They were charged with embezzlement, breach of trust, misappropriation, swindling, and forgery in private companies and banking; most of them remain in prison pending trial.

Although Ivory Coast law does not permit criminal penalties or pre-trial detention for journalists, for publishing offences, the theft of secret documents carries a prison sentence.

“Journalists have the right to refuse to divulge their sources where it is in the public interest to do so,” said IPI Director David Dadge. “This right is the cornerstone of the profession and the disregard for this right, as demonstrated by these arrests, is deeply worrying. We call on the Ivorian authorities to release these journalists immediately.”

Speaking to IPI by phone from Ivory Coast, a journalist with another Ivorian newspaper – whose publisher was fined three million CFA Francs (approx. 4573 Euros) for publishing the results of opinion polls conducted by a research group about the country’s presidential elections – said: “Until now the authorities had respected their pledge to uphold freedom of the media. But with this latest development we feel that something has been initiated which could damage freedom of the media.”

He added: “We, along with other Ivorian newspapers, published today a demand that our colleagues be released immediately.”