Africa

Contact CPJ Africa

Twitter: @CPJAfrica
Facebook: CPJAfrica
Africa Program Head:
Angela Quintal

Africa Program Coordinator:
Muthoki Mumo

Senior Africa Researcher:
Jonathan Rozen

Tel: 212-465-1004
Fax: 212-214-0640

Knight Foundation Press Freedom Center
P.O. Box 2675
New York, NY 10108 USA

  
The bloodstained jacket of journalist Ohemeng Tawiah is shown. Armed men attacked Tawiah with stones and machetes after he and his camera operator joined a police team investigating allegations of illegal mining at a site in Ghana’s northern Ashanti region on December 20, 2024. (Photo: Courtesy of Tawiah)

No accountability after Ghanaian journalists attacked while covering illegal mining investigation

Abuja, February 6, 2025—Armed men, some wearing military camouflage, attacked journalist Ohemeng Tawiah with stones and machetes on December 20, 2024, after Tawiah and his camera operator, Joseph Kusi, joined a police team investigating allegations of illegal mining at a site in Ghana’s northern Ashanti region.  Tawiah told CPJ he provided police with a written…

Read More ›

An image of journalist Albino Sibia's last words after being shot by police in Mozambique on December 12 (left); reporter Pedro Júnior is transported to the hospital after being shot while covering Sibia's December 14 funeral (center); and a selfie of journalist Arlindo Chissale, who went missing on January 7 and who may be dead, according to media reports. (Images, from left: screenshot via José Pimentel Teixeira/ YouTube; photo by Egilio Litsure, photo by Arlindo Chissale)

Blogger killed, editor missing as Mozambique’s press freedom crisis deepens

“Help. I got shot and they keep shooting…I am dying.” These were among the last words that Mozambican blogger Albino Sibia streamed live on Facebook on December 12, 2024, after a police officer shot him twice in the back as he was filming police action against protestors. Sibia, also known as Mano Shottas, died about…

Read More ›

Journalists covering eastern DRC conflict face death threats, censorship

The M23 rebel group’s assault on the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s eastern city of Goma has brought familiar dangers for Congolese journalists, who for years have navigated intimidation and attacks from government and armed groups in the country’s restive, mineral-rich east. Advances by the M23, which United Nations experts say is supported by the…

Read More ›

Guinean regulator bans news site Dépêche Guinée

Dakar, January 30, 2025—Guinea’s High Authority of Communication should reverse its decision to indefinitely suspend the privately owned news site Dépêche Guinée and ensure the public has unrestrained access to diverse media sources, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday. “The banning of Dépêche Guinée represents an escalation of the Guinean communications regulator’s censorship efforts and…

Read More ›

A traffic police officer gestures directing motorists along a street, following a night of gunfire after security forces moved to arrest the former head of the intelligence service, in Juba, South Sudan November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Samir Bol

South Sudan blocks social media access amid unrest

Nairobi, January 24, 2025– The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on South Sudanese authorities to reverse its social media ban and to ensure that the public has open and reliable internet access, which is essential for news gathering amid unrest in the country. “Blocking social media access is a blanket act of censorship and a disproportionate response…

Read More ›

(Courtesy of Joseph Perzoladepecheinfo)

Benin’s regulator suspends 6 media outlets until further notice

Dakar, January 23, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists urges Beninese authorities to reverse their January 21 orders suspending six privately owned media outlets — news sites Reporter Médias Monde, Les Pharaons, and Crystal News, the Mme Actu Tiktok account, and Le Patriote and Audace Info newspapers — and to return the press card of Audace Info’s publication director…

Read More ›

CPJ finds flaws, inconsistencies in murder conviction of Senegalese journalist René Capain Bassène

In spite of the Senegalese gendarmerie officer holding a gun held to his head, Ibou Sané held firm. He refused the officer’s order to admit that he knew René Capain Bassène – but in the end it didn’t matter. Testimony he insisted he never gave was used in court to help convict Bassène, a well-known…

Read More ›

Tanzanian activist Maria Sarungi Tsehai attends a press conference after she was abducted and later released, in Nairobi, Kenya, January 13, 2025. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi

Tanzanian journalist Maria Sarungi Tsehai briefly abducted in Kenya 

Nairobi, January 14, 2025– CPJ calls on the Kenyan government to conduct a comprehensive investigation after four unknown men assaulted and abducted prominent Tanzanian journalist and human rights activist Maria Sarungi Tsehai for about four hours on Sunday in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. “With attacks on dissidents living in exile in Nairobi and a…

Read More ›

VPNs, training, and mental health workshops: How CPJ helped journalist safety in 2024

Haitian journalist Jean Marc Jean was covering an anti-government protest in Port-au-Prince in February 2024 when he was struck in the face by a gas canister fired by police into the crowd. One of at least five journalists injured while covering civil unrest in the country that month, Jean arrived at the hospital with a…

Read More ›

Angolan journalists

CPJ, partners call on Angola to commit to press freedom during UN human rights review

The Committee to Protect Journalists and two Angola-based media rights organizations have made a joint submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council, calling on authorities in the southern African nation to improve its record on ensuring journalists’ safety and press freedom. The submission, dated July 16, 2024, was made ahead of Angola’s January 2025…

Read More ›