Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

An Abidjan criminal court has acquitted the editor, managing editor and publisher of the Nouveau Courrier d’Abidjan newspaper, who had been originally been charged with theft of an official document, publishing information about a judicial case that has not yet been tried and revealing a confidential document. The three journalists, editor Saint Claver Oula, publisher Stéphane Guédé and managing...

The National Press Council (CNP), the print media regulatory body in Côte d'Ivoire, imposed a fine of three million CFA francs (about US$6,000) on Regie Cyclone Company, publishers of Le Temps, a pro-government daily newspaper, according to the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA). MFWA's correspondent reported that the fine was as a result of the newspaper's publishing of the results of...

Three journalists have been detained in Ivory Coast since Tuesday, after they refused to disclose sources for an investigative report detailing the results of a government probe into corruption in the coffee and cocoa export trade, according to local journalists and news reports. Ivorian State Prosecutor Raymond Tchimou, who summoned staffers from the private daily Le Nouveau Courrier—Managing...

Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) authorities banned international French broadcaster France 24 on Monday on bogus allegations of unprofessionalism over coverage of political unrest in the West African nation, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Speaking to Reuters on Wednesday, Frank Anderson Kouassi, the president of Ivory Coast’s National Broadcasting Council (known by its French...

Cote d’Ivoire authorities on Thursday last abruptly jailed a journalist who was scheduled to appear in court next week on libel charges related to a column critical of the government, according to local journalists and press reports. The imprisonment appeared to violate the 2004 Ivorian press law, which decriminalised press offences and banned pretrial detention of journalists, the Committee to...

A judge has ordered the release of French freelance photographer Jean-Paul Ney, who has been held in custody for 15 months in connection with an alleged “plot” to undermine Cote d’Ivoire's peace process, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Ney, who spoke by phone from Maca prison in the capital Abidjan to the worldwide press freedom organisation’s secretary-general, Jean-François...

Several copies of the weekly Le Nouveau Réveil newspaper were seized on March 4 from the newsstands and destroyed by two unidentified persons in Cocody and Yopougon, two suburbs of Abidjan, capital of Côte d'Ivoire, according to the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA). MFWA's correspondent reported that the publishers of Le Nouveau Réveil have since lodged a formal complaint to the Ivorian...

The editor-in-chief of Alerte Info, an internet news magazine, has been arrested in Côte d’Ivoire and detained for allegedly reporting that at least three people were killed during a prison riot in Abidjan recently. The police picked up Ebenezer Viwami, over the weekend for interrogation, his staff revealed. “Our editor-in-chief was arrested by the police in front of MACA prison, where he was...

Simone Gbagbo, wife of Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, and former Ivorian economy minister Paul-Antoine Bohoun Bouabré failed to respond to a summons from French investigating judge Patrick Ramaël for questioning on July 10 in Paris as witnesses in his probe into the disappearance of journalist Guy-André Kieffer, a dual French-Canadian national, in Côte d'Ivoire in 2004. Paris-based Reporters...