Africa

The Tanzanian minister of information, sports and culture has ordered three newspapers to provide reasons why they published what he calls "defamatory" news reports. The newspapers in question are Taifa Letu, Sema Usikize and Taifa Tanzania. The minister on February 13 accused the three newspapers of writing defamatory reports against three prominent figures, namely Reginald Mengi, the executive...

The Jericho Church, an indigenous Christian denomination, has moved an application at the High Court of Swaziland to ban the media from reporting on the split that has rocked the Church as a result of a leadership dispute, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has reported. The Church wants to gag the country's two daily newspapers, the Times of Swaziland and the Swazi Observer, as well as...

An unidentified Pretoria News journalist was shot six times by the police during a standoff between the police and students at Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria on February 11. Several people were injured when police fired a barrage of rubber bullets at hundreds of students protesting at the university. The journalist was rushed to hospital by paramedics, according to the Media...

The police in Gabon arrested two European journalists on Tuesday, accusing them of posing as tourists to dig up a story on French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. "They arrived on February 5 as tourists.... They must answer (charges of) bypassing procedure," Gabon Communication Minister Laure Olga Gondjout told Agence France-Presse (AFP). The two were named on Gabon television as French...

Four female journalists were in a state of shock on Monday after reportedly being attacked, forced to strip and marched through a Sierra Leonean town by a pro-female genital mutilation (FGM) group, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported. Witnesses said the four were accused of reporting on an anti-FGM campaign last Friday, which marked the international day of zero tolerance to female...

Sudan has expelled a foreign journalist for reporting on the country's Darfur crisis and arms industry. Canadian-Egyptian reporter Heba Aly, who wrote for US news agency Bloomberg, Boston-based Christian Science Monitor newspaper and the United Nations news service IRIN, left the country last week. She told colleagues that officers from Sudan's security service contacted her and ordered her to...

The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned Saturday's brutal knife attack on Hassan Bulhan, director of a local radio station in the central town of Abudwaq. Bulhan was stabbed at least five times in the chest and abdomen during a clan reconciliation meeting, two local journalists told CPJ, in what was the second attack on a Somali journalist in just four days. Bulhan was in stable...

A reporter-cameraman of a privately-owned TV station in Madagascar was shot dead while covering an anti-government demonstration outside the presidential palace in capital Antananarivo on February 7. The 25-year-old Ando Ratovonirina of Radio et Télévision Analamanga (RTA) was among the scores of people who were killed or wounded when security forces opened fired on the protesters, according to...

Two publications which recently came into the Swazi media scene have been threatened with closure for failure to register with government, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) has eported. By law, all publications in Swaziland, including newspapers and magazines, are required to register with the government. Registration is accompanied by a bond of US$100. One of the publications, CAP...

The process to award four community radio licences, approved by the Swazi government in October 2008, has plunged into controversy and uncertainty, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). This follows a statement issued on February 5 by the Swaziland Radio Regulator stating that the four applicants short-listed for the licences have been disqualified as opposed to having their...