Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has deplored the Niamey public prosecutor's decision to file an immediate appeal against an investigating judge's June 23 decision to allow detained journalist Moussa Kaka to be released provisionally. The appeal blocked the release of Kaka, who continues to be held in a Niamey prison. The director of privately-owned Radio Saraounia and the Niger correspondent of...
Saikou Ceesay, a reporter with the Banjul-based opposition Foroyaa newspaper, was arrested on June 15 and detained overnight in the Kotu police station in Kombo province, about 11 kilometres southwest of Banjul, the capital of The Gambia. Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) sources reported that Ceesay was arrested at the police station while investigating the arrest and detention of pro...
Zimbabwean police have charged a street vendor for listening to a news programme on the Zimbabwe broadcast of the Voice of America, reports Zimonline news agency. Noel Tichawana was arrested in early June 2008 and will appear in court on July 15 to answer to charges of "committing criminal nuisance" after he was caught listening to the programme Studio 7, which broadcasts political, economic and...
Mallam Saidu Sarki Usman, the political editor of the private daily newspaper Leadership, based in Abuja, Nigeria's Federal Capital Territory, was ordered on June 20 to be remanded into prison custody. The order was issued by a Chief Magistrate Court presided over by Alhaji Salihu Attahiru in Minna, Niger State, North-central Nigeria. Usman is accused of allegedly publishing an "injurious...
A judge in Niger ordered the conditional release of a reporter for Radio France International (RFI) on Monday, but he stayed in jail because the public prosecutor lodged an appeal, a judicial source and RFI said, according to Reuters. Moussa Kaka, director of a private radio station and correspondent for French state-owned RFI, will stay in jail until an appeal court rules on his case. Kaka was...
A Rabat court ordered the Arabic-language daily Al Jarida Al Oula to stop publishing hitherto unpublished testimony about repression under the late King Hassan II, which senior officials gave to an official truth commission called the Equity and Reconciliation Panel (IER). The court issued on Thursday the order in response to a request by Ahmed Herzenni, an official appointed by King Mohammed to...
The Chinese Embassy in Malawi has removed Wisdom Chimgwede, Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS) editor, from the list of journalists travelling to China on a media tour it sponsored after receiving instructions from Malawi's Ministry of Information and Civic Education. The visit is slated to begin on June 21. The ministry had earlier on accused the journalist of writing negatively about the...
Two Liberian journalists working for the New Democrat newspaper were arrested and detained for several hours on June 16 by officers of the Liberia National Police in Monrovia. According to the police, news editor Othello Garblah and staff writer Festus Porque were arrested at the request of the Monrovia Transit Authority for "unprofessional photography." The two journalists had gone to the...
The joint trial of independent newspaper, the Standard, its editor Davison Maruziva, and Professor Arthur Mutambara, leader of a faction of opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has been postponed to July 10. The Standard newspaper, Maruziva and Mutambara stand charged under Section 31 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act following the publication of an opinion...
Kwekwe journalist Blessed Mhlanga was acquitted Wednesday last over charges of contravening Section 80 (1)(a)(2) of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which prohibits the publication of falsehoods. However, his colleagues Wycliff Nyarota and James Muonwa are facing trial, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). The state alleges that on March 26...
