It could have been the script for a John Le Carré intrigue. On Saturday October 12, Belgian security agents arrested Mohamed Abdi Hassan, a kingpin of Somali piracy known as “Afweyne” (Big Mouth), and his associate Mohammed M. Aden, nicknamed Tiiceey, a former governor of Himan and Heeb province.
Nairobi, October 16, 2013–Unidentified assailants threw two grenades at the Galkayo offices of Radio Daljir in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland on Tuesday night, according to news reports and local journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the attack on Radio Daljir, which has been targeted in the past, and calls on authorities to identify…
Journalists and media owners across Africa gave Ethiopian journalist Woubshet Taye a standing ovation in Cape Town on Saturday night at the CNN MultiChoice African Journalist Awards 2013, but he wasn’t there to see it. Instead his wife and son accepted the Free Press Award on his behalf. Part of the citation for the award…
Rumor had it that thieves and police had exchanged gunfire during the robbery of a bank at the Westgate Mall. That was the word that first reached some Nairobi newsrooms that Saturday about the gunshots many Kenyans heard coming from the luxurious shopping mall.
New York, October 8, 2013–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Monday’s decision by Liberia’s Ministry of Justice to grant Rodney Sieh–the publisher of FrontPageAfrica who has been jailed since August for not paying libel damages–“compassionate release” for 30 days. The conditions behind Sieh’s release were not clear, but the journalist’s health had deteriorated in prison.…
Abuja, Nigeria, October 3, 2013–Gambian authorities should immediately release Fatou Camara, a journalist who has been held incommunicado since September 17, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The government has not disclosed Camara’s whereabouts or any charges against her, according to news reports.
The Nigerian government on September 27, 2013, accused two leading independent online news websites–the Abuja-based Premium Times and the New York-based Sahara Reporters–of publishing frequent reports that “incite mutiny” within the military and undermine ongoing military operations against terrorist activities in northern Nigeria, according to news reports.
Nairobi, September 30, 2013–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a decision by Tanzanian authorities to suspend two leading private Swahili dailies on accusations of sedition. The government issued a statement on Friday suspending Mwananchi and MTanzania for 14 and 90 days respectively.
In 1968, Andrei Sakharov braved censorship and personal risk in the Soviet Union to give humanity an honest and timeless declaration of conscience. That same year, Ethiopia’s most prominent dissenter, Eskinder Nega, was born. In January 1981, a year into Sakharov’s exile in the closed city of Gorky, Reeyot Alemu, another fierce, Ethiopian free thinker,…