Africa

2019

  
Taxis in Kinshasa in June 2019. Police in the Democratic Republic of Congo capital detained a journalist for five days over a criminal defamation complaint. (AFP/John Wessels)

Congolese journalist detained for five days over defamation complaint

On October 21, 2019, police arrested Achiko Ngaya, editor of the privately owned newspaper Les Nouvelles du Soir, in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ngaya told CPJ. The journalist said he was detained for five days and charged with criminal defamation.

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Police officers are seen in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on March 26, 2018. Presidential bodyguards recently attacked a group of journalists in Freetown. (Reuters/Olivia Acland)

Three journalists beaten by Sierra Leone presidential bodyguards in September

On September 8, 2019, bodyguards of Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio attacked three journalists who were covering a football match in Freetown, the capital, according to the journalists, who spoke to CPJ, and news reports.

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A woman walks past Rapid Intervention Battalion members as they patrol in the city of Buea in October 2018. CPJ and others are calling on the ACHPR to address human rights violations in Cameroon's Anglophone regions. (Reuters/Zohra Bensemra)

African Union must act on Cameroon’s human rights violations

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 64 other civil society organizations in calling on the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) to address serious and systematic human rights violations in Cameroon, including the jailing of journalists.

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A roadside news stand in Asaba, Delta State, in April 2011. A court in Asaba has charged two journalists with criminal defamation. (AFP/ Pius Utomi Ekpei)

Nigerian journalists charged with criminal defamation, breach of peace

New York, October 29, 2019—Authorities should drop all charges against journalists Joe Ogbodu and Prince Amour Udemude, and reform Nigeria’s penal code to ensure that journalism is not criminalized, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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Getting Away with Murder

CPJ’s 2019 Global Impunity Index spotlights countries where journalists are slain and their killers go free Published October 29, 2019 Somalia is the world’s worst country for the fifth year in a row when it comes to prosecuting murderers of journalists, CPJ’s 2019 Global Impunity Index found. War and political instability have fostered a deadly…

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A man reads headlines of a daily newspaper on March 27, 2018, in Freetown. A freelance journalist was charged with criminal defamation in Sierra Leone in September 2019. (AFP/Issouf Sanogo)

Sierra Leone journalist Mahmud Tim Kargbo charged with criminal defamation

Mahmud Tim Kargbo, a freelance reporter in Sierra Leone, was arrested and detained twice in September 2019 after Miatta Samba, an appeals court judge, lodged a complaint with the police against him for a report published September 9, 2019, on his Facebook page and in a WhatsApp group that criticized Samba’s decision to grant bail…

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CrossRiverWatch journalist Agba Jalingo (right) is seen in a federal high court in Calabar, Nigeria. Jalingo is due in court tomorrow on amended charges of cybercrime and terrorism. (Oto-Obongo Clement/CrossRiverWatch)

Nigerian court grants anonymity to witnesses testifying against journalist Agba Jalingo

New York, October 24, 2019 — The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed concern over a Nigerian court’s decision to grant anonymity to witnesses set to testify against journalist Agba Jalingo and deny the public access to the courtroom during the trial.

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An aerial view shows a crowd gathered outside the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) headquarters in Kinshasa on May 30, 2019, as supporters await the return of the remains of former Congolese Prime Minister and opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, who died in Belgium in 2017. A Congolese radio journalist was attacked by UDPS supporters at a Kinshasa rally on October 5, 2019. (AFP/Alexis Huguet)

Congolese radio journalist attacked by ruling party supporters at Kinshasa rally

On October 5, 2019, Dominique Dinanga, a reporter for the privately owned Top Congo FM radio station, was attacked by supporters of the ruling Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) party at a rally in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where former Prime Minister Bruno Tshibala was to receive…

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Four Iwacu journalists, from left, Térence Mpozenzi, Agnès Ndirubusa, Christine Kamikazi, Egide Harerimana, and their driver, Adolphe Masabarikiza, are detained in Burundi. (Iwacu Media)

Burundi police arrest Iwacu journalists covering unrest

Nairobi, October 23, 2019—Authorities in Burundi should immediately release four journalists and a media worker from the privately-owned news outlet Iwacu, whom police detained in the western Bubanza province yesterday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.

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Hamza Idris (left), an editor with the Daily Trust newspaper, sits with colleague Hussaini Garba Mohammed in their office in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, in February 2019. The office was raided in January by the military, who seized 24 computers. (CPJ/Jonathan Rozen)

Nigerian military targeted journalists’ phones, computers with “forensic search” for sources

Hamza Idris, an editor with the Nigerian Daily Trust, was at the newspaper’s central office on January 6 when the military arrived looking for him. Soldiers with AK47s walked between the newsroom desks repeating his name, he told CPJ. It was the second raid on the paper that day; the first hit the bureau based…

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2019