Guinea

Police officers assaulted Alpha Oumar Diallo, a journalist for online newspaper Aminata, as he covered anti-government protests on May 10 in Conakry, the capital, according to news reports and local journalists.

New York, March 8, 2012--Guinean authorities must investigate and bring appropriate charges against police officers who assaulted a journalist at the Central Bank of Guinea, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Reporter Kounkou Mara suffered head and other injuries in the attack.

Mara, a reporter for the privately owned Le Lynx, was denied entry to the Central Bank of Guinea on February 27 despite presenting her press identity card to officers and saying she was scheduled to interview the bank's governor, according to news reports. Officials told her she posed a security threat to the bank employees, then a commanding officer ordered her to be ejected, the journalist told a local newspaper.

On Monday, Guinea's state-controlled media regulatory agency imposed a "temporary" ban on media coverage of the July 19 attack on the private residence of President Alpha Condé, silencing private radio and television talk programs in which critical questions were being raised about the episode. In such circumstances, Guinean listeners turn to foreign media outlets such as France's state-funded international broadcaster, Radio France Internationale (RFI), the most popular station in Francophone Africa. With programs such as "Appels Sur L'actualité," a daily news call-in show, RFI is considered by millions of African listeners to be an essential source of news and information. 

CPJ has joined with African press freedom groups to urge African leaders to end repression of the media as they celebrate 50 years since the end of colonial rule. We will publish a series of blogs this week by African journalists reflecting on the checkered history of press freedom over that period.

This year is the 50^th anniversary of independence for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa from colonial powers France and Belgium. To mark the event, French President Nicholas Sarkozy has invited African leaders to Paris for the July 14 Bastille Day celebrations. One thing that hasn’t changed much in the last half a century is that the presidents and prime ministers on the Champs Elysees reviewing stand can rest assured that media back home will dutifully report on their speeches and appearances.

With the death on Monday of Guinean President Lansana Conté, uncertainty hangs over what--or who--is to follow. Yet, as recently as last week, coverage of the poor health of the reclusive autocrat, who ruled this mineral-rich but poor West African nation since 1984, proved risky for the Guinean independent media. 

New York, May 28, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a two-month ban summarily handed to a Guinean independent newspaper last week over an editorial that raised critical questions about the health of President Lansana Conté’s second wife.

The state-run National Communications Council decided on the ban, which is the third suspension of a newspaper in Guinea this year, after private weeklies La Vérité and L’Observateur, according to CPJ research.