Burundi

Burundi’s most popular radio station, privately-owned Radio Publique Africaine (RPA), is under the threat of closure because of its coverage of the current political unrest, according to Reporters Without Borders. Burundi’s Security Council, a body headed by the president, issued a statement on March 16 accusing RPA and other media of “sowing fear in the population” and calling on the...

In response to a petition from the Union of Burundian Journalists (UBJ), the Constitutional Court has quashed certain provisions of the media law that was promulgated on 4 June 2013. The court’s ruling, issued on 7 January, invalidated articles providing for huge increases in fines and other penalties that could be imposed on journalists in an arbitrary manner. “While we obviously approve the...

Online newspaper editor Jean-Claude Kavumbagu was released on May 16 after being acquitted on a charge of treason for questioning in an article whether Burundi would be able to protect itself against a terrorist attack by Somalia’s Islamist militia Al-Shabaab, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Prosecutors had requested a life sentence last month on April...

New York-based press freedom organisation Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged Burundi Justice Minister Ancilla Ntakaburimvo to intervene in the case of Jean-Claude Kavumbagu, editor of the news website NetPress who has been improperly imprisoned since July 17, 2010, on a charge of treason. In a letter to the minister, CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon urged the state prosecutor to...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on the authorities in Burundi to release journalist Jean-Claude Kavumbagu, who has been held in custody for nearly six months at Mpimba prison in the capital Bujumbura. No trial has yet been opened in the case. “Jean-Claude Kavumbagu should be released immediately. He was arrested last July and is about to begin the year...

New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called for the release of journalist Jean-Claude Kavumbagu after visiting him in prison in Burundi's capital, Bujumbura. CPJ made the call at a press conference marking the end of a four-day mission to Burundi. CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney and East Africa Consultant Tom Rhodes on Thursday met Kavumbagu, editor of...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern over the way authorities in Burundi are treating two journalists employed by the newspaper Iwacu, Elyse Ngabire and Dieudonné Hakizimana, who were arrested for unknown reasons on November 5, held incommunicado for 48 hours and released at noon Sunday. They have been told to appear before Bujumbura police chief...

Burundian authorities freed the director of a weekly publication arrested this week on defamation charges, the journalist said Friday. Thierry Ndayishimiye, the director of the Arc-en-ciel weekly, was released on Thursday, two days after he was detained over an article in which he accused the director of the national water and electricity firm of trying to cover up embezzlement of $110,000....

Burundian police on Tuesday arrested Thierry Ndayishimiye, chief editor of the private weekly Arc-en-Ciel, on defamation charges related to a story about alleged government corruption, according to New York-based press freedom group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Ndayishimiye is the second Burundian editor to be jailed in less than a month. The state prosecutor summoned Ndayishimiye to a...

Burundi police arrested a journalist for alleged "treason" Saturday over an article questioning whether the security forces could deal with an attack like one that hit Uganda a week ago, an official said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). The July 11 bombings in Kampala claimed by Al Qaeda-inspired rebels killed at least 73 people watching the World Cup final in what the insurgents said was...