2013

Training journalists how to better cover gender-based violence can help challenge attitudes that foster sexual attacks. Helping journalists learn personal skills to safely navigate sexual aggression can help prevent them from becoming victims themselves.

Nairobi, November 21, 2013–Somali authorities arrested two journalists, one of them the victim of an alleged rape, on Wednesday in Mogadishu, the capital, and charged them with defamation in connection with a report on the alleged rape, according to news reports and local journalists.

Armed state security agents on October 24, 2013, in the commercial capital, Lagos, barred journalists from covering the arraignment of 17 suspected members of the Boko Haram militant group on charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism, illegal possession of firearms, and being members of a proscribed organization, according to news reports.

A court in the capital Monrovia on November 18, 2013, officially ordered the release from prison of FrontPageAfrica publisher Rodney Sieh and the reopening of the offices of the private daily newspaper, according to news reports. The newspaper will resume its daily publication on November 25, 2013, Sieh told CPJ.

A court in Dakar, the capital, on August 14, 2013, sentenced Mamadou Biaye, former editor of the private daily Le Quotidien, and Bastien David, an intern reporter for the paper, to one month in prison each on charges of criminal defamation, Agence France-Presse reported.

New York, November 14, 2013–The Committee to Protect Journalists urges South African President Jacob Zuma not to sign the revised Protection of State Information Bill and instead to send it to the Constitutional Court for review. The bill, which was sent back to parliament in September, was passed again by the National Assembly late on…

Soldiers from the Mozambique Defense Force (FADM) beat up two journalists from Independent Television Mozambique (TIM) who were reporting on a confrontation between the military and locals in a town close to the capital Maputo on November 7, 2013.

Two murdered journalists for the Africa service of Radio France Internationale, Ghislaine Dupont, 51, and Claude Verlon, 58, might have had a chance. They were abducted on November 2 in Kidal in northern Mali, but the vehicle their captors were driving suddenly broke down, according to news reports.

New York, November 5, 2013–As media leaders and officials of regional institutions gather in Addis Ababa this week for the African Media Leaders Forum (AMLF), the Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the participants to ensure that press freedom is squarely on the agenda.