Africa
2009
Journalist found decapitated in western Kenya
New York, January 30, 2009–Reporter Francis Nyaruri was found decapitated and with his hands bound on Thursday in a forest in western Kenya. Nyaruri, who wrote for the private Weekly Citizen under the pen name Mong’are Mokua, had been missing since January 15, according to local journalists and relatives.
Q & A: Reporting in a ‘culture of fear’
Freelance journalist Frank Chikowore visited CPJ this week after receiving the Tully Center Free Speech Award at Syracuse University. Chikowore received the award for his brave, ongoing reporting on the crisis in Zimbabwe. He has worked for two newspapers in Zimbabwe, including The Nation and the Weekly Times, which was closed down in 2005.
Anti-government protests burn two TV stations
New York, January 26, 2008–Angry opposition supporters burned down two pro-government television stations in the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar today, a few hours after authorities destroyed the antenna of an opposition radio station, according to news reports and local journalists.
Two publications suspended in Gabon
OCTOBER 27, 2008 Le Mbadja Le Scribouillard CENSORED The National Communications Council (CNC) suspended bimonthly Le Mbadja and weekly Le Scribouillard from circulation for allegedly violating journalism ethics, according to journalists in the capital, Libreville. The suspension occurred one week after the CNC asked editors from 11 newspapers to stop using nicknames for politicians. Guy…
How diamond rings silence Zimbabwe’s foreign press
The Hong Kong police announced on Monday they would investigate the alleged assault on photographer Richard Jones by Zimbabwe’s first lady, Grace Mugabe, while she was on vacation. On January 15, Jones claimed Mugabe ordered her bodyguard to hold the photographer down while she punched him repeatedly in the face near Hong Kong’s exclusive Shangri-la…
Press freedom in the news 1/21/2009
Agence France-Presse has coverage of our letter sent to Cameroonian President Paul Biya on January 16. The letter protested the jailing of four Cameroonian journalists, which makes the country Africa’s second-leading jailer of journalists. The reporters have been held since September on charges of criminal defamation. AFP quotes CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon: “The journalists…
Letter from Mogadishu: Working where violence is normal
On Friday, as we welcomed the release of a journalist kidnapped in Somalia, we received a compelling account from a freelance reporter working in the capital, Mogadishu. Our colleague describes the perils of working in a city where journalists operate at the mercy of warring insurgents and government troops, and throughout Somalia, one of the world’s…
Somali journalist freed, two foreign reporters still hostage
New York, January 16, 2009–CPJ welcomes the release of a freelance Somali photojournalist and two Somali drivers on Thursday but remains deeply concerned for the fate of two foreign freelance reporters who have been held since their abduction on August 23, 2008, by unknown gunmen.