Africa

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) has recommended that the government should "decriminalise" offences relating to the accreditation and the practice of journalism in Zimbabwe, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has reported. The commission ruled in favour of MISA-Zimbabwe, Independent Journalists Association of Zimbabwe (IJAZ) and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human...

Nearly four months after the death of Franco-Congolese journalist Bruno Jacquet Ossébi, the Committee to Protect Journalists has called for authorities in the Republic of Congo to publicly disclose a report that was prepared weeks ago on their investigation. A magistrate appointed in February to oversee an investigation into the cause of the fire that ravaged Ossébi's residence in Brazzaville...

Rwandan information minister, Louise Mushikiwabo, has threatened to reimpose the ban on Kinyarwanda-language broadcasts by BBC if the British radio did not change its editorial line. Broadcasts only resumed on June 23 after a two-month interruption. Rwandan pro-government daily the New Times reported in an article on June 26 that the minister had said BBC was guilty of “bad faith” and that if the...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the charges of “violating public decency”, “inciting crimes” and “publishing court statements still under the seal of confidentiality” that were brought against Hanevy Ould Dehah, the editor of the website Taqadoumy, on June 24. Dehah, who has been held since June 18, was taken to Dart Naim prison after being charged. “We urge the authorities to...

A Gambian reporter arrested on Monday while covering a pre-trial hearing in the sedition case of seven journalists jailed last week, was still being held without charge late Tuesday, according to local journalists and news reports. Augustine Kanjia of the daily, the Point, was being held at a police station in Serrekunda, Gambia's largest city, according to defence lawyer Assan Martin. A...

The director of the Mauritanian news website Taqadoumy ( http://www.taqadoumy.com), Hanevy Ould Dehah, has been arrested on the orders of the prosecutor’s office in the capital Nouakchott, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) . The arrest followed a defamation complaint by presidential election candidate, Ibrahima Moctar Sarr, president of the opposition party Alliance for Justice and...

Seven Gambian journalists charged with sedition last week for criticising the president have been freed on bail, while two other detainees were released without charge, local journalists and the press union told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Monday. Magistrate Sainabou Wadda, presiding in Kanifing Court, outside the capital, Banjul, Monday granted bail of 200,000 dalasi, (US$7,547)...

[Updates earlier story] Five-year prison sentences have been handed down by a military court in Cameroon to Jacques Blaise Mvié and Charles René Nwé, respectively deputy managing director and editor of weekly La Nouvelle for publishing “defence secrets," Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. To date, neither of the two journalists has actually been arrested. “The sentence...

A magistrate in the Gambian capital, Banjul, has charged seven journalists with sedition for criticizing President Yahya Jammeh's televised comments about the unsolved 2004 murder of editor Deyda Hydara, their defence lawyer said. Gambian security forces arrested an eighth journalist Thursday morning, although no charges were immediately brought, the committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has...

A journalist in Equatorial Guinea, facing a criminal libel charge over a flawed story, was imprisoned on Wednesday, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported, quoting local journalists. Rodrigo Angüe Nguema, a correspondent for Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Radio France Internationale (RFI), was arrested by a plainclothes security agent at a courthouse in the capital...