Africa

Press freedom panel Committee to Protect Journalists on Tuesday condemned the weekend arrest of three Ugandan journalists for publishing inflammatory reports. Police on Saturday detained Andrew Mwenda, publisher of the bi-monthly magazine Independent, consulting editor Odobo Bichachi and journalist John Njoroge and accused them of "possessing seditious materials" and "publishing inflammatory...

A prosecutor dropped two-year-old charges against freelance journalist Sydney Saize in restive Zimbabwe on Tuesday, while a magistrate denied bail to freelancer Frank Chikowore, who has been detained for more than a week. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Wednesday called for Chikowore’s immediate release. Mutare prosecutor Malvern Musarurwa declined to pursue charges against Saize, who...

A Somali radio journalist was detained for eight hours by police on Monday, amid the deadliest violence Mogadishu has experienced in months, the reporter told Agence France-Presse (AFP). "I got my freedom back," Abdi Mohamed Ismail, Shabelle Radio news editor, told AFP after his release. "They dealt with me fairly, but they didn't ask me anything during the whole time that I spent in custody...

A broadcast journalist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo pressed charges Monday against an Angolan diplomat, alleging he was beaten unconscious by the diplomat and his aides on Saturday, according to local journalists. Journalists familiar with their colleague’s station, Radio Télévision Mwangaza, told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that the attack was in reprisal for coverage of...

Police in Somalia have released five journalists and allowed their radio station to resume broadcasting, Agence France-Presse (AFP0 has repored quoting its staff. The Radio Voice Peace journalists were released overnight hours after they were detained for the station's coverage of an attack on Wednesday night by Islamist insurgents in Mogadishu's KM4 neighbourhood. The station reported that the...

Chinyeke Tembo, a Malawian freelance journalist who was arrested Thursday for calling a lady police officer 'beautiful', was Friday charged with 'insulting the modesty of a woman'. Tembo was arrested when he was among a group of journalists who had gone to a police station in the capital, Lilongwe, to give 'moral support' to a colleague, Maxwell Ng'ambi, who was arrested earlier, Panapress news...

A British journalist was deported from Zimbabwe on Thursday after being detained for eight nights and fined 20 billion Zimbabwe dollars (about $250), Reuters reported quoting his newspaper. Jonathan Clayton, a correspondent for the Times, was arrested in the southern city of Bulawayo in the aftermath of elections last month. The Times said Clayton had been cleared of the initial charges of...

Police in Somalia raided and closed an independent radio station in the capital Mogadishu on Thursday, arresting five journalists, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported. "A dozen of policemen aboard minibus entered the building and they arrested five of my colleagues including the editor," said Omar Habeb, a producer at Radio Voice of Peace. Mohamed Ali Irole, the radio station's director, said...

A court in Zimbabwe on Wednesday acquitted a US journalist and a British freelancer of covering the country's March 29 elections without accreditation, saying the state had failed to prove the offence and ordered them to be released, news agencies have reported. Magistrate Gloria Takundwa said the state's evidence against New York Times correspondent Barry Bearak and Britain's Stephen Bevan, a...

Two South African satellite engineers, held in Zimbabwe on several charges, including violating the country’s draconian media accreditation laws, were acquitted Monday. New York Times reporter Barry Bearak and British freelancer Stephen Bevan are due to appear in court on Wednesday in a similar case. “We welcome the acquittal of our colleagues Sipho Moses Maseko and Abdulla Ismail Gaibee,” said...