Freelance journalist Stanley Kwenda, a contributor to the private weekly the Zimbabwean, fled the country on Friday after he said he received a telephone threat from a high-ranking police officer, according to the paper’s editor, Wilf Mbanga. The reporter identified the caller as Chief Superintendent Chrispen Makedenge, Mbanga said. The caller allegedly said that Kwenda would be dead by the...
Jean-Bosco Talla, the editor of the privately-owned weekly Germinal, was released from Yaoundé’s Kondengui prison on January 13 after paying the fine imposed by a court on December 28 on a charge of insulting the president, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Talla, who described himself as “calm,” told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Germinal would continue to be published “without any...
Freelance journalist John Grobler was assaulted by four men at a bar Friday evening in Namibian capital Windhoek, cutting his face with a broken glass and kicking him repeatedly in the head. Grobler was taken to MediCity Emergency Clinic, where he was treated and released, the journalist told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Grobler was able to identify three out of four...
Hanevy Ould Dehah, the editor of the website Taqadoumy, continues to be detained illegally in Nouakchott’s Dar Naim prison although he should have been freed on December 24 on completing a six-month sentence on a charge of “offending public decency.” The good news is that, under pressure from his family, he has abandoned the hunger strike that was threatening his health, Reporters sans Frontières...
Tanzanian Information Minister George Mkuchika announced the suspension of leading investigative weekly Kulikoni on Friday, citing a sales and distribution ban for a period of 90 days beginning January 11, according to local journalists and news reports. The ruling was linked to a November 27, 2009, story that alleged cheating in the national exams for the Tanzania People’s Defence Forces, the...
Togolese sports journalist Stanislas Ocloo was on Friday gunned down in the attack on Togo’s national soccer team’s bus in the northwestern Angolan enclave of Cabinda, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Also killed was assistant coach Hamelet Abulo, according to Angola's official ANGOP news agency. As many as three people were killed and nine injured in the strike, CNN...
A court in Chadian capital N’Djamena on Thursday found the privately owned weekly La Voix “not guilty” of charges against it and lifted a provisional order for automatic seizure of all copies of the paper made on December 3, 2009, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. An appeal will be heard on January 13. “We are already preparing our next issue and we think we should be able to publish...
Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the immediate release of Hanevy Ould Dehah, the editor of the website Taqadoumy, who should have been freed 10 days ago on completing a six-month jail sentence on a charge of “offending public decency.” Arrested on June 18 and convicted on August 19, Dehah began a hungerstrike on December 25 in protest against his continuing detention. “We urge the...
Mortar shells destroyed the Radio Voice of Democracy building Monday morning in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, killing Amal Abukar, 22, the wife of the director of the station, Abdirahman Yasin, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. Abukar died instantly after three mortar shells landed on the station’s building in northern Mogadishu at 10:30 a.m., local...
Several journalists attempting to report on clashes this week and last between government forces and protesters were detained and beaten up in Khartoum and the nearby city of Omdurman. Police detained more than 100 people during the clashes, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported quoting local news reports. On Monday, police arrested Lucia John Abui, a journalist...
