Africa

Journaliste en danger (JED) has applauded the February 19 release of Bwamputu Akienzin Zéphyrin, a correspondent for the public broadcaster RTNC in Bandundu province, western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Zéphyrin had been facing charges of making damaging allegations against a former RTNC director. A Bandundu court declared the charges pending against the journalist unfounded, acquitting...

The Zambian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services (MIBS) has with immediate effect stopped issuing broadcasting licenses to new applicants, saying it is working towards the establishment of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) that will soon take over the licensing function of all broadcasters in the country, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has reported. MISA...

The semi-private Swazi Observer newspaper has successfully challenged a High Court ruling which had restrained the newspaper from reporting on a leadership dispute in the Jericho Church, an indigenous Christian denomination, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). The order, granted by Judge Stanley Maphalala on February 12, was set aside by another High Court judge, Justice...

Bienvenu Yay, an independent journalist and the Mbandaka correspondent for the Kinshasa-based, private television station Congoweb TV, was on February 20 handed down a six-month sentence and ordered to pay US$2,500 in damages for slandering José Makila, deposed governor of Équateur province, according to delayed reports. Mbandaka is located in the northeastern province of Équateur. Yay, according...

Newly appointed Media, Information and Publicity Deputy Minister Jameson Timba has promised to restore media freedom in Zimbabwe by immediately allowing closed publications to reopen and freeing the airwaves in accordance with Article 19 of the Global Political Agreement (GPA), which states that the government shall ensure the immediate processing by the appropriate authorities of all applications...

The police in the breakaway autonomous region of Somaliland in northern Somalia has arrested Mohamed Abdi Guled, editor of privately-owned weekly Yool appearing in Hargeisa. The journalist is being held on the premises of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Several journalists in Hargeisa said that Mohamed Abdi Guled, better known as "Urad"...

A Dakar appeal court has upheld the three-year jail sentence passed on El Malick Seck, the editor of the Dakar-based daily 24 Heures Chrono, on September 12 last year for a vaguely-sourced report claiming the president and his son Karim were involved in money laundering in Côte d’Ivoire. Arrested on August 28, Seck was convicted of “disseminating false news.” The sentence was upheld on February 23...

The Sudanese government is censoring the media and cracking down on human rights activists and journalists who speak out on human rights and justice. Harassment, repression and censorship has worsened in the last year, particularly since the International Criminal Court's (ICC) request for an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir in July 2008. A 21-page report by Human Rights Watch (HRW),

An official in Swaziland has apologised for summarily dismissing a female reporter from Parliament nearly two weeks ago. It was the latest in a controversy sparked by allegations of gender discrimination against Mantoe Phakathi, an award-winning journalist with the private monthly, the Nation, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported on its blog. "As a former media practitioner...

Several journalists of the Reporter, an independent monthly magazine in Burkina Faso, as well as journalist Newton Ahmed Barry of privately-owned weekly newspaper l'Événement have received death threats via e-mail for allegedly criticising three top government officials. In a February 2009 edition of the Reporter, the magazine published a letter from an anonymous source that identified himself as...