Ethiopian police in the capital, Addis Ababa, threatened on August 4 to block distribution of an independently owned newspaper if it continues its leading coverage of a new political opposition movement, according to local journalists. The Amharic-language weekly Awramba Times reported Tuesday that it had received two separate phone warnings from top police officials to stop any coverage of "anti...
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on Senegalese authorities to put an end to the attacks on media and independent journalists and to build a new relationship with journalists. The call came after a police raid of a printing house to prevent distribution of the newspaper L'As and the interrogation of the paper's publisher. On Thursday, Mamadou Thierno Talla, L'As Director...
An Ethiopian judge overseeing the high-profile trial of an imprisoned pop singer jailed the editor of an independent weekly for contempt of court on august 4. The contempt charge came after the weekly published an interview with the singer's lawyer, according to local journalists. Mesfin Negash, editor-in-chief of the current affairs weekly Addis Neger, could be sentenced to as many as six months...
In the first six months of 2008, a large number of Somali journalists and other media workers were subjected to various kinds of violence and oppression such as harassment, killing, professional punishment, beatings, threats, arrests, arbitrary detention, maltreatment and censorship. The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) recorded numerous cases of attacks against media professionals and
Zimbabwean journalists Wycliff Nyarota and James Muonwa were Tuesday convicted of publishing falsehoods in breach of the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). Kwekwe Magistrate Oliver Mudzongachiso found Nyarota and Muonwa guilty of contravening Section 80 (1) (a) of AIPPA for unlawfully and intentionally...
Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the July 28 decision by Niger's public prosecutor to appeal against an investigating judge's decision on July 23 to dismiss the charges on which Radio Saraounia manager Moussa Kaka has been held since September 2007. The authorities would have had to free Kaka if the prosecutor had not filed his appeal. "The government's determination to keep Kaka in...
There was a dramatic end to the Globecast Satellite trial on July 24 when Harare Magistrate Archie Wochiunga refused to place the South African company on further remand after the state applied for a postponement of the matter, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). Prosecutor Florence Ziyambi had applied to have the matter postponed arguing that her witness had failed to turn...
A South African company, Globecast Satellite, which saw two of its employees acquitted of practicing journalism without accreditation in April 2008 by a Harare magistrate, is now being charged with illegal importation of broadcasting equipment in violation of the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA), according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). At the commencement of the trial on July 15...
Fuhara Mugisha, the deputy managing editor of Rwanda's leading independent weekly, Umuseso has been deported from the country. Despite having a Rwandan mother, Mugisha is a citizen of neighbouring Tanzania. "This is an unacceptable act of intimidation that yet again highlights the Rwandan government's inability to tolerate the few independent publications," Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières...
Simone Gbagbo, wife of Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, and former Ivorian economy minister Paul-Antoine Bohoun Bouabré failed to respond to a summons from French investigating judge Patrick Ramaël for questioning on July 10 in Paris as witnesses in his probe into the disappearance of journalist Guy-André Kieffer, a dual French-Canadian national, in Côte d'Ivoire in 2004. Paris-based Reporters...
