Eritrea now has at least 30 journalists and two media workers behind bars, which means that, exactly eight years after the round-ups of September 18, 2001 that put an end to free expression, it has achieved parity with China and Iran in terms of the number of journalists detained. The three most important waves of arrests of the past eight years were in September 2001, November 2006 and February
The assistant news editor of Nigerian daily Guardian, Bayo Ohu, was shot dead at home by a group of up to five gunmen on Sunday morning as he was preparing to go to a church service. The killers fired at least eight bullets into him, after he opened the door to them, the International Press Institute (IPI) has reported quoting news reports.. The journalist’s wife had already left the house to...
Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo must aggressively investigate threats made against three radio reporters in the eastern city of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Delphie Namuto and Caddy Adzuba of UN-sponsored broadcasting network Radio Okapi and Jolly Kamuntu of local station Radio Maendeleo were named in an anonymous...
The government-run Uganda Broadcasting Council effectively shut down four radio stations today and Thursday, and ordered all radio stations to halt political debate programming in the wake of violent clashes in the capital, Kampala, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Violence erupted after the government attempted to block the king of the Buganda ethnic group, Ronald Muwenda...
A woman journalist convicted of public indecency for wearing trousers outdoors was freed Tuesday, despite her own desire to serve a month in prison as protest against Sudan's draconian morality laws, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. The judge who convicted Lubna Hussein had imposed a $200 fine as her sentence, avoiding the maximum sentence of 40 lashes in an apparent attempt to put an end...
South Africa's Films and Publications Amendment Bill, described by critics as deeply flawed and unconstitutional, has been signed into law. The measure was promulgated in the Government Gazette in the last week of August, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). When it was introduced in 2006, the media industry protested that it paved the way for pre-publication censorship and...
A magistrate in Zambia issued a summons for the entire editorial staff of the southern African country's largest independent newspaper to appear in court on Wednesday on contempt charges, according to local journalists and news reports. The ruling was prompted by an op-ed commenting on the prosecution of the paper's news editor. The Post published on Thursday an op-ed by a US-based contributor...
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern over the health of imprisoned editor Abdoulaye Tiémogo after his transfer from a hospital in Niger's capital, Niamey, to a prison in a remote town on Monday. Tiémogo, editor of the weekly Le Canard Déchaîné, is suffering from malaria and is no longer receiving adequate medical attention in a prison in Ouallam, 55 miles (88 km) to the...
Five journalists and a TV station covering Gabon's disputed presidential election, which has already been marred by media censorship, have been attacked since Wednesday, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local journalists. Official results announced Thursday declared Ali Ben Bongo—son of Omar Bongo, the late 41-year ruler of the oil-rich, equatorial...
The Gabonese government indulged in censorship and imposed restrictions on media coverage of Sunday's presidential elections, including denials of accreditation to at least four international journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Three front-runners have emerged in the fiercely contested election to determine a successor to Omar Bongo, who died in June after a 41...
