Africa

Burundi police arrested a journalist for alleged "treason" Saturday over an article questioning whether the security forces could deal with an attack like one that hit Uganda a week ago, an official said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). The July 11 bombings in Kampala claimed by Al Qaeda-inspired rebels killed at least 73 people watching the World Cup final in what the insurgents said was...

Journalists in Guinea are forgotten victims of violence, says a report released by ARTICLE 19 after the first round of presidential elections in the country, the first free presidential elections in 52 years since independence. The report findings are based on a mission undertaken by ARTICLE 19 in the aftermath of the events of September 28, 2009, when more than a hundred and fifty people were...

The National Press Council (CNP), the print media regulatory body in Côte d'Ivoire, imposed a fine of three million CFA francs (about US$6,000) on Regie Cyclone Company, publishers of Le Temps, a pro-government daily newspaper, according to the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA). MFWA's correspondent reported that the fine was as a result of the newspaper's publishing of the results of...

Dauda Mohammed, a newspaper photographer in Ghana who was reportedly abducted on July 12 by unidentified men for taking pictures of a private mansion of former president Jerry John Rawlings, reportedly escaped from his abductors, after about an hour in detention, according to the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA). Mohammed, a reporter for the privately-owned newspaper The Insight, told Accra...

Three journalists have been detained in Ivory Coast since Tuesday, after they refused to disclose sources for an investigative report detailing the results of a government probe into corruption in the coffee and cocoa export trade, according to local journalists and news reports. Ivorian State Prosecutor Raymond Tchimou, who summoned staffers from the private daily Le Nouveau Courrier—Managing...

Gunmen abducted three prominent Nigerian journalists and a driver traveling through the country's oil-rich, but volatile southern delta, a colleague said Monday, the latest troubling sign of insecurity in the West African nation, according to Associated Press (AP). The reporters had just left a conference in Akwa Ibom state Sunday afternoon and were forced to stop their bus by a speeding car...

Police in Rwanda arrested the editor of a private newspaper on Thursday last in connection with a series of articles critical of the government, according to local journalists. Agnès Uwimana was taken into custody in the capital, Kigali, over allegations that her Kinyarwanda-language weekly Umurabyo had published stories “inciting the public to disobey,” “articles related to division and ethnicity...

Somali government forces have been increasingly harassing independent journalists covering violent fighting in Mogadishu, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Somali reporters targeted for their reporting included a New York Times correspondent and a CPJ International Press Freedom Award winner, while nine other journalists were injured this week while reporting during deadly...

Rwandan authorities said Monday they have arrested two people in connection with the killing of a journalist critical of President Paul Kagame's government, and that one of the two has confessed, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported. Jean-Leonard Rugambage, who had accused the Rwandan government of being behind an assassination attempt on a dissident general in South Africa, was gunned down in...

The Somali Islamist insurgent group Hizbul Islam warned Somali media against covering celebrations of the country’s 50th anniversary Thursday, according to news reports. Hizbul Islam chief Mo’allin Hashi Farah told local radio stations that if they covered today’s celebrations they would “face bad consequences,” a report from Sapa-AFP said. “We call on the Muslim people to avoid commemorating what...