Africa

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has hailed the provisional release of French photographer Jean-Paul Ney, who had been held in Abidjan since late December 2007 in connection with a conspiracy to overthrow the Ivorian government known as the “Christmas in Abidjan” affair. The provisional release of Ney on Wednesday and all the other persons held in connection with the case was ordered this afternoon...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has written to Rwandan information minister Louise Mushikiwabo expressing deep concern about the “temporary suspension” of BBC broadcasts in the local language Kinyarwanda because of comments about the 1994 genocide which Rwandan citizens made in one of these broadcasts. “We are aware that the genocide continues to be a highly sensitive subject in your country and...

Sudan's execution this week of nine men found guilty of involvement in the 2006 assassination of editor Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed is seen by many there as an outrageous miscarriage of justice, spurred by a thirst on the part of President Omar al-Bashir's regime for settling scores with the rebellious region of Darfur. All nine men were from this oppressed and poverty-stricken region of Sudan

Gambian authorities must authoritatively account for the whereabouts, health, and legal status of journalist "Chief" Ebrima Manneh, who was taken into government custody by security agents in July 2006, the Committee to Protect Journalists has said. Authorities, who have held Manneh in secret locations since the arrest, have provided conflicting and incomplete accounts this month regarding his...

Authorities in Republic of Congo should immediately lift their ban on private TV station Canal Bénédiction Plus (CB Plus), the Committee to Protect Journalists has said. The ban was enacted in February in response to political coverage in the lead-up to presidential elections in July. CB Plus was forced off the air on February 12 shortly after it aired footage of a 1991 national political...

On March 31, in the commercial city of Abidjan, Judge Aissata Koné convicted Op-Ed Editor Nanankoua Gnamenteh and Managing Editor Eddy Péhé of private weekly Le Repère of charges of "offending the head of state" over an article in early March that was critical of President Laurent Gbagbo, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local media reports. Koné sentenced Gnamanteh...

A provincial governor in Mozambique has made public death threats against Bernardo Carlos, a journalist on the daily Noticias, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Ildefonso Muananthatha, Governor of Tete in the centre-west of the country, warned the journalist he could suffer the same fate as his colleague Carlos Cardoso, the newspaper editor who was murdered in 2000. Bernardo Carlos...

The junta in Mauritania must immediately halt its increasing persecution of critical journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. On March 15, police arrested Abbass Ould Braham, a journalist with the independent news Web site Taqadoumy, ‎in a Nouakchott cafe after he wrote an article critical of military rule, a local journalist told CPJ. Taqadoumy was blocked until March...

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...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed its concern after five newspapers in Madagascar stopped publishing and several journalists were threatened and physically assaulted during the political upheaval of the past few weeks. The media has become the prisoner of a hostile climate for press freedom since the start of the power struggle between the president, Marc Ravalomanana, and the ousted...