Africa

Nairobi, May 30, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is dismayed by an Ethiopian regional court’s decision to sentence Jigjiga Television Network founder Ahmed Awga to two years in jail on charges of disseminating hateful information via a Facebook post he did not author. On May 22, the Fafen Zone High Court in Jigjiga, the capital…

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 31 other non-governmental organizations in calling on the United Nations Human Rights Council to condemn grave human rights violations in Eritrea, including arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention of journalists, violations of the rights to a fair trial, torture, and extraterritorial attacks on critics. Ahead of the Council’s forthcoming session, which…

Kinshasa, May 27, 2025—Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo must identify and hold to account the police officer who shot journalist Samy Kambere Malikidogo while covering a public demonstration against crime and violence in Durba, in the northeastern province of Haut-Uélé, said the Committee to Protect Journalists on Tuesday. “DRC authorities must swiftly,…

Dakar, May 21, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities in the Central African Republic to drop their prosecution of journalist Landry Ulrich Nguéma Ngokpélé, editor of the privately owned newspaper Le Quotidien de Bangui, who was arrested and jailed on May 8 over his newspaper’s report on the alleged return of former President…

Abuja, May 21, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Liberian authorities to swiftly investigate the May 5 raid on Smile FM by a dozen armed men who beat a member of staff and occupied the premises until police sealed it off and stopped broadcasts.  “Liberian authorities must hold to account those who attacked Smile…

Nairobi, May 16, 2025—Journalist Ahmed Awga has been in prison for over three weeks for interviewing a man who said his 16-year-old son Shafi’i Abdikarim Ali died following a police beating — one of at least seven journalists arrested in Ethiopia in the last month as the government tightens the screws on the media. After…

Dakar, May 15, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Nigerien authorities to swiftly and unconditionally release journalists Hamid Mahmoud, Massaouda Jaharou, and Mahaman Sani, with the privately owned Sahara FM radio station, after they were arrested for the second time in four days on May 10 for broadcasting information about the country’s military cooperation…

Kampala, Uganda, May 15, 2025 – Somali security personnel have arrested, assaulted, or harassed at least 41 private-media journalists since mid-March, in what local press rights groups have called a “painful experience” and an “alarming escalation” in attacks on the media. Most of these press freedom violations were connected to coverage of national security issues,…

Dakar, May 7, 2025— Senegalese authorities should end the persecution of journalist René Capain Bassène, whose lifetime prison sentence was upheld by the Senegal Supreme Court in a May 2 decision, said the Committee to Protect Journalists on Wednesday. “It is deeply worrying that René Capain Bassène’s life sentence has been upheld despite all the flaws in the investigation that led to his imprisonment and the documented…

Nairobi, April 22, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by Ethiopian police raids on the privately owned news outlet Addis Standard’s office and an employee’s home, their confiscation of electronic devices, and detention of three managers for several hours. “The Addis Standard raids are the latest moves in the Ethiopian government’s campaign to silence…