Cape Town, South Africa, December 5, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes today’s ruling by the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights in Addis Ababa that criminal defamation should be used only in restricted circumstances and that imprisonment for defamation violates freedom of expression. The court also upheld the appeal of Issa Lohé Konaté,…
Cape Town, South Africa, December 5, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the decision by the Pretoria High Court in South Africa to uphold journalist Cecil Motsepe’s appeal against a conviction of criminal defamation, but disapproves of the court’s ruling that the crime of defamation for journalists falls in line with South Africa’s constitution. Motsepe,…
Nairobi, November 24, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists today calls on authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo to stop meddling with radio station broadcasts in the country. The Congolese Information Minister Lambert Mende has called for the shutdown of several radio stations in recent weeks, and a few have gone off the air.
This week, members of UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication will meet to discuss the director general’s biannual report, which examines the cases of nearly 600 journalists killed around the world from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2013. The report, and lacklustre response from member states who had been asked to provide…
Abuja, Nigeria, November 4, 2014–A journalist in Sierra Leone has been imprisoned after criticizing President Ernest Bai Koroma’s handling of the Ebola outbreak, according to news reports and local journalists. David Tam Baryoh was arrested on Monday.
Nairobi, November 4, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Kenyan police to stop harassing and threatening a journalist in Kisumu city, western Kenya. Last month, police threatened and briefly detained Justus Ochieng, a reporter for the privately owned daily The Star, in connection with a story he wrote that alleged criminal activity by police…
Nairobi, November 3, 2014–Authorities in the semi-autonomous republic of Somaliland arrested two journalists from privately owned television stations last week after they each aired coverage of a protest in the northwest town of Gabiley, local journalists told CPJ. Authorities arrested Horn Cable TV reporter Mukhtar Nouh Ibrahim on October 30 and SomSat TV reporter Mohamed…
Lagos, Nigeria, October 30, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed that protesters stormed and looted the offices of Burkina Faso’s national broadcaster Radiodiffusion Television du Burkina in the capital, Ouagadougou, today. Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets to protest a constitutional amendment that would allow President Blaise Compaore to seek re-election next…