Gambia's national security agency arrested Monday seven journalists who published a union press release criticising President Yahya Jammeh's recent comments about the unsolved 2004 murder of editor Deyda Hydara, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. On Monday evening, National Intelligence Agency (NIA) plainclothes agents picked up veteran Managing Editor Sam Sarr, an advisor to...
The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ has expressed its alarm over aggressive attacks against two broadcast journalists in southwestern Somalia. Mr Omar Abdirahman Mohamoud (Jaajaa) and Ms Sahra Ali Mohamoud, who work for privately owned Markabley Radio as a reporter and newscaster, respectively, were seriously beaten on the evening of June 11 by four masked Al-Shabab militiamen soon...
The editor of a private newspaper in the Gambia has been in police custody since Wednesday because of a story that falsely reported the sacking of two government officials, according to local journalists. Abdulhamid Adiamoh, managing editor of the daily Today, is being held in a cell at the Major Crimes Unit of police headquarters in the capital Banjul since his arrest on Wednesday, the...
A magistrate's court in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, suspended on June 3 distribution of the June 2009 edition of L'Essentiel, a monthly current affairs magazine, and ordered its seizure over headlines on the cover page that the court claimed were an "insult" to President Abdoulaye Wade. According to the presiding magistrate, the headlines "Freemasonry: The Grand Lodge of France Conquers Senegal...
Attempts to unravel the murder of journalist Francis Nyaruri have run into problems after key witnesses began receiving death threats. The family lawyer, Andrew Mandi (who practises in the Nyamira District of Kenya's Nyanza Province) and Robert Natwoli (a police officer in Nyamira) have gone into hiding after they were threatened with death, the Nairobi-based Media Institute has reported. The...
A military tribunal in Yaoundé sentenced Jacques Blaise Mvié and Charles René Nwe, general manager and editor-in-chief, respectively, of La Nouvelle newspaper, to five years in prison and a 500,000 FCFA (approx. US$1,066) fine at the end of a closed-door hearing. No appeal was permitted on June 3; the journalists were only informed of the hearing after the fact, Journaliste en Danger (JED) has...
Ibrahim Mohamed Ali, the director of somalia's privately-owned Universal TV has been released by his captors. Four armed and hooded men abducted the journalist five days earlier on the road between Afgoye and Mogadishu. The Djibouti-based independent Somali news agency SOMINA reported that that Ali, also known as “Jeckey,” was abducted by four masked gunmen who stopped his car as he was returning...
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has laid a charge of "stolen property" after the Mail and Guardian Online posted on the web an episode of the current affairs programme "Special Assignment", a documentary report on political satire. The public broadcaster pulled the episode on the evening of May 26, 2009, citing "internal processes," after initially pulling it just before the...
Awudu Mahama, a parliamentary reporter, and photographer Emmanuel Kubi, both of the Daily Guide, an Accra-based, privately-owned newspaper, were reportedly detained on 2 June 2009 at the headquarters of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) for allegedly loitering around the security zone, the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) has reported. MFWA's correspondent reported that the two...
Moise Sidibe, a reporter with L'Indépendant, a privately-owned weekly newspaper, was picked up by the military, together with three of his family members, on May 27, the Media Foundation for West Africa (MWFA) has reported. They are in detention at the Alpha Yaya camp in Conakry, the capital of Guinea. MFWA's correspondent reported that the Red Berets forcibly took the reporter from his house...
