Africa
2012
Journalist assaulted by police in Ivory Coast
New York, June 12, 2012–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Ivorian police’s assault on a journalist on June 5 and calls on authorities to ensure the officers are brought to justice. Two officers attacked Cybèle Athangba, a reporter with the daily La Nouvelle, while she was covering a protest of about 100 police officers…
Gunmen shoot Somali journalist in Mogadishu
Nairobi, June 11, 2012–A Somali radio journalist was shot by two gunmen in Mogadishu on Friday, according to news reports. Mohamed Nur Mohamed, who was hit twice in the abdomen, survived the attack, the reports said. Mohamed, a correspondent for Radio Bar-Kulan, a U.N.-sponsored radio broadcaster with headquarters in Nairobi, was walking home in the…
CPJ and Africa Media Initiative meet Ethiopian minister
Addis Ababa, June 11, 2012–The Committee to Protect Journalists and the Africa Media Initiative (AMI) called for the release of journalists being held under Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism laws and requested a review of those laws as they affect freedom of speech.
Amid assaults on press, Uganda police promise reforms
Joseph Mutebi, a photojournalist for the popular vernacular state-owned daily Bukedde, spent his afternoon trying to file a complaint with the police in the capital, Kampala. “First they told me the officer who assaulted me was based at another station, so I went there and now they are telling me he is based at the…
Defining role of the press in genocide prevention
Talking about genocide prevention in the shadow of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camps brings an intense and unique gravity to the discussions. The academic presentations cannot extract themselves from the looming presence of the barbed wires and grim towers surrounding the Nazis’ most infamous death factory.
South Africans clash on Twitter over #Zumaspear
South African journalist and arts critic Charl Blignaut made what turned out to be an excellent prediction. “Of all the work on show, it’s this depiction of the president that will set the most tongues wagging and most likely generate some howls of disapproval,” he wrote on May 13 in a review of an art…
Computer crime laws belie Thai claim to modern society
At online discussion sites all over the world, comments are posted on the Web as soon as they are written. People argue, inform, express anger, and voice fears. Some say things in the heat of the moment that they might go on to regret. Others are elliptical and obscure. The enabling of such conversations is…
CPJ welcomes Malawi’s repeal of news censorship law
Nairobi, May 31, 2012–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Wednesday’s vote in the Malawi parliament that repealed a sweeping amendment to the country’s penal code which had allowed the government to ban any news “not in the public interest.”
Free expression in Americas goes beyond left or right
On Sunday the general assembly of the Organization of American States will convene in Bolivia in the verdant, highland valley city of Cochabamba. The 35 member states (every nation in the region except Cuba) are expected to vote on a measure that, if passed, could curtail free expression and press throughout the hemisphere and put…
