Africa

Nigeria President Umaru Yar’Adua has initiated action against independent daily Leadership after it carried an article on the state of health of Yar’Adua saying he had to cancel official engagements for two days because of ill health. The article also said that doctors had been flown in from Saudi Arabia to treat him, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The publisher of Leadership, Sam...

Freelance journalist Hadis Mohammed Hadis has been released after being held for two weeks at the Criminal Investigation Department in Hargeisa, capital of the breakaway region of Somaliland in northern Somalia, Reporters sans Frontières has reported. Hadis Mohammed Hadis has already been arrested on several occasions over the last two years. He told Paris-based RSF after being released on...

Four journalists were abducted on Wednesday in the northern Somali breakaway state of Puntland. The abduction took place in the port city of Bosasso, from where several foreigners have been abducted over the past year. The journalists were reported to have been investigating the spate of piracy incidents in Somali waters. There was some confusion over the nationalities of those taken, according to...

Somali police have arrested the director of a radio station in the south-western town of Baidoa. According to the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), Hilal Sheikh Shuayb of Warsan Radio was arrested following the orders of the governor of Bay Region, Abdifatah Mohamed Ibrahim. The journalist was accused of airing live the judgment of a Baidoa Court judge who ruled on a Transitional...

A journalist working for UN-backed Radio Okapi in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was shot dead on Friday night. Didace Namujimbo is the second Radio Okapi reporter to be killed in the South Kivu provincial capital Bukavu in the past 18 months. "Once again a Radio Okapi journalist has been killed in Bukavu. Didace Namujimbo was killed by a shot to the head by unknown assailants on...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has welcomed the conclusion of the first working congress of the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), held in Nairobi, Kenya last week end as a historic milestone in strengthening African Journalists. "IFJ affiliates in Africa have finally realised a long-held ambition to set up their own federation. This will have a tremendous impact on...

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have released five journalists of privately-owned Raga TV, after they were arrested on November 19 and held for 24 hours at an undisclosed location, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). “We were all released this evening. We were in trouble over the broadcast of an interview with an opposition figure who made comments seen as offensive...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the Swaziland attorney-general’s threatening statement that journalists who criticise the government could be arrested under a new anti-terrorism law that has just been used to crack down on opposition groups. “In a country already under King Mswati’s tight control, the government has clearly decided to step up the pressure and leave no room for any...

Radio Galkayo, a privately-owned station in the northeastern somalian city of Galkayo, has started functioning again and its director, Hassan Mohamed Jama, has been released after three days in detention. Jama has nonetheless been ordered to report to a Galkayo court at 9 a.m. on Thursday, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). The police of the autonomous northeastern territory of...

Two Nigerien journalists were sentenced to prison Tuesday on criminal libel charges over editorials critically scrutinising the director of the country's electricity supplier. The two men are free pending an appeal after spending five days in prison. A criminal court judge in the capital, Niamey, sentenced editor Moussa Aksar and reporter Aboubacar Sani of the weekly L'Evènement to three months in...