Africa

It seemed clear-cut and sadly familiar: A journalist was shot and killed while walking in Mogadishu, one of the deadliest places in the world for the press. Yet in the four weeks that have passed since those initial reports from international and local news agencies--accounts that were then amplified by the United Nations, CPJ, and numerous human rights groups--virtually everything about the case has been cast into doubt. Was there a murder, after all? Who was the woman said to have been targeted? Does she even exist, at least as she was described? What did the people described as eyewitnesses really see? And why, after telling local journalists early on that the case was actually being investigated as a false report, have police gone silent for weeks?

Nairobi, April 22, 2013--The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Somali authorities to keep their promise to prosecute journalists' killers by investigating the murder of Mohamed Ibrahim Raage. Two unidentified gunmen shot Mohamed around 5:30 p.m. Sunday near his home in Mogadishu's Dharkenley district, according to local journalists.

New York, April 22, 2013--The Committee to Protect Journalists protests Ethiopian authorities' transfer of independent newspaper editor Woubshet Taye to a remote prison several hours away from his family's home. Woubshet has been imprisoned since June 2011 on vague terrorism charges that CPJ has determined to be unsubstantiated.

Nairobi, April 19, 2013--Two investigative journalists have reported receiving death threats in Kenya shortly after airing a story suggesting foul play in a government official's death, according to news reports and local journalists.

Lagos, Nigeria, April 19, 2013--Two Nigerian journalists and their employer have been charged with forgery in connection with their publication of a memo reported to be from President Goodluck Jonathan, according to news reports. If convicted, the journalists could face life terms.

Lagos, Nigeria, April 17, 2013--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a recent decision by the Nigerian government to ban the exhibition and distribution of a documentary film on corruption in the state's management of oil wealth, "Fuelling Poverty."

Lagos, Nigeria, April 10, 2013--Nigerian police should stop harassing the staff of the leading independent daily Leadership over a story critical of President Goodluck Jonathan, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

On Monday, police in the capital Abuja summoned four Leadership journalists for questioning over an April 3 story entitled "Outrage Trails Presidential Directive on Tinubu, APC," according to the newspaper. The story reported on public criticism of Jonathan following Leadership's publication a day earlier of a purported presidential memorandum in which Jonathan allegedly laid out plans to increase petrol prices and sabotage a merger of opposition political parties ahead of the 2015 elections by targeting their leaders' business interests.

Authorities in Ethiopia describe Eskinder Nega, a prominent columnist and government critic jailed since September 2011 on vague terrorism charges, as a dangerous individual bent on violent revolution. However, in an opinion handed down in 2012--publicized only this week by Washington, D.C.-based legal advocacy group Freedom Now--a United Nations panel of five independent experts ruled that Eskinder's imprisonment came "as a result of his peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of expression."