The editor of a small-circulation fortnightly is being detained for no known reason since March 7 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Nsimba Embete Ponte, editor of L’Interprète, is being held incommunicado in a building used by the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) in Kinshasa. “The security forces have no grounds for acting in this way,” Paris...
The police in Uganda should respect a court ruling that lifts a ban on two live radio programmes, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. The court decision Friday last allowed two live political shows on Life FM in Fort Portal to resume broadcasting, but the station has since received a warning from police about its future programming. On January 8, Regional Police Commander Martin...
Niger’s official media regulator summarily suspended Wednesday the FM broadcasts of France-based Radio France Internationale (RFI) for three months, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Authorities accused RFI of discrediting the government in connection with a day-long series of programmes on Monday about the detention of RFI correspondent Moussa Kaka. In a...
Gabon has banned a private newspaper for republishing a report on President Omar Bongo’s private wealth in France. The original story appeared in French daily Le Monde at the end of January. Gabon’s state-run National Communications Council accused Tendance Gabon, a private semimonthly, of spreading “a campaign of denigration” against Bongo after questioning Director Edwige Anyouzoa during a nine...
Journalists in Sierra Leone are challenging laws that criminalise free speech and authorise prison terms of up to seven years for those who criticise the government. The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) filed the lawsuit with the country's Supreme Court: last week, seeking to overturn Sierra Leone's criminal libel and false news laws. The laws allow prison sentences for expression...
The editor of privately-owned twice-weekly newspaper L'interprète was abducted by unidentified armed men near a bus stop in the Kinshasa neighbourhood of Masina on March 7, according to delayed reports received by Journaliste en danger (JED). Editor Nsimba Embete Ponte is being held in a secret location and the official motives for his arrest remain unknown. According to information obtained by...
The United Nations has sharply criticised as inadequate a Congolese military investigation and murder trial which followed the killing of a UN radio journalist by armed men in military uniform last June, news agencies have reported. Serge Maheshe was shot in the legs and chest by two men on June 13 as he was leaving a friend's home in the eastern town of Bukavu, where he was editor-in-chief of UN...
Press freedom organisaitons have deplored the censorship and harassment to which Sudan’s privately-owned media have been subjected since the start of the year. Arrests, summonses, threats and outright bans on certain news items — the campaign waged by the government against the independent press is reducing the space for free expression even more. “It should be an honour for Sudan to let the many...
Sudan has reimposed daily censorship of newspapers after they published reports accusing the government of backing Chadian rebels, Reuters reported Thursday. Journalists and local human rights activists criticised the move, which they said had begun nearly three weeks ago after rebels stormed the Chadian capital N'Djamena in a failed attempt to topple President Idriss Deby. Journalists said...
The Tunisia Monitoring Group (TMG), a coalition of 18 member organisations of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) network, are appalled at the treatment of human rights activists Sihem Bensedrine and Omar Mestiri upon their arrival in Tunisia on March 3. Bensedrine is Secretary-General Observatory for the Freedom of Press, Publishing and Creation in Tunisia (OLPEC), IFEX's...
