Government security forces intimidated and harassed critical journalists, particularly political commentators on the country’s many popular radio talk shows. Criminal defamation and sedition laws were the main weapons in the government’s legal attacks on the press, although a case pending before the Supreme Court held some promise that the laws might be declared unconstitutional.
President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party, startled by balloting that threatened their 28-year rule, unleashed a brutal crackdown on opposition supporters and the press. Veteran journalist Geoff Hill described the weeks between the first round of voting in March and a runoff in June as “the worst time for journalists in Zimbabwe’s history,” a…
New York, February 9, 2009–Authorities in the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar must bring to justice members of the presidential guard responsible for the killing on Saturday of a journalist covering an antigovernment demonstration in the capital, Antananarivo, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
New York, February 6, 2009–An online columnist known for criticizing the government and alleging high-level corruption was buried in the Republic of Congo today following his death in a military hospital on Monday, according to local journalists. Bruno Ossébi, left, was badly burned in a late-night fire at his residence on January 21, although he…
Falastiin Iman, a former producer for the independent Somali broadcaster HornAfrik, was talking by phone on Sunday with the station’s director, Said Tahlil, left. He was upbeat, she said, a mood that is not easy to come by in Mogadishu. “He was so happy that peace was finally coming to Somalia and that, miraculously, HornAfrik…
New York, February 5, 2009–Eritrean authorities must disclose the medical condition and care being provided to jailed journalist Dawit Isaac, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today following unofficial reports saying that he was hospitalized. CPJ points out that the well-being of the long-jailed Isaac, an Eritrean with Swedish citizenship, is the responsibility of the…
New York, February 4, 2009–The director of HornAfrik, one of Somalia’s leading radio and television stations, was killed by three masked gunmen in the Bakara Market area of Mogadishu on Tuesday afternoon, local journalists told CPJ. The assailants shot Said Tahlil repeatedly as he and six other senior journalists were walking to a meeting with…