Your Excellency: We are writing to urge that you use all of your influence to ensure a transparent and thorough investigation into the recent murder of veteran award-winning journalist Godwin Agbroko in Lagos. The murder, which federal police officials have characterized as an assassination, casts a deep chill on journalists reporting the news in Nigeria in the run-up to April’s historic presidential election.
New York, January 19, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities in Burkina Faso to drop criminal defamation charges against two private newspaper journalists over stories on the unsolved 1998 murder of editor Norbert Zongo. The articles discussed a report by the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) that raised questions about…
New York, January 18, 2007–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the ruling by a court in the northern breakaway republic of Somaliland on Wednesday to try three jailed journalists under archaic criminal laws in connection with a story critical of the president. A regional court in the capital, Hargeysa, ruled that editor Ali Abdi Dini,…
New York, January 16, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the jailing since Friday of the director of a private Kinyarwanda-language newspaper in the capital, Kigali, for publishing a letter critical of the government. Agnès Nkusi-Uwimana of the bi-monthly Umurabyo was still being detained today at the Muhima police station on charges of discrimination and…
New York, January 16, 2007—Four private broadcasters returned to the air today, a day after being shut down by Somalia’s U.N.-backed transitional government, according to local journalists and the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ). HornAfrik radio and television, Radio Shabelle, Radio IQK (Holy Quran Radio), and Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television resumed broadcasting after a closed-door…
New York, January 12, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a government decision on Tuesday to suspend a private radio station for 15 days and ban a foreign journalist from the domestic airwaves indefinitely in response to critical coverage of the Togolese soccer association (FTF). Radio Victoire in the capital, Lomé, remained off the air…
JANUARY 11, 2007 Posted February 6, 2007 Olurotimi Akanbi, Addis Fortune LEGAL ACTION Akanbi, a copy editor for the private English-language business weekly Addis Fortune in the capital Addis Ababa, was charged with contempt of court in connection with a December 31, 2006, headline critical of the Ethiopian judiciary, according to CPJ sources. The headline,…
New York, January 11, 2007—The director of a newspaper in the capital, Kinshasa, was jailed today for an 11-month term and his publication suspended for six weeks on a criminal defamation charge, according to the local press freedom group Journaliste en Danger (JED) and local journalists. Rigobert Kwakala Kash, who also edits the private twice-weekly…
New York, January 11, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Nigerian government’s apparent crackdown on critical reporting, as security service agents reporting directly to the president engaged in the second newspaper raid in as many days. State Security Service (SSS) officials were holding Dan Akpovwa, publisher of the private weekly Abuja Inquirer, incommunicado late…