Ghana / Africa

ALGERIA: 2 Djamel Eddine Fahassi, Alger Chaîne III IMPRISONED: May 6, 1995 Fahassi, a reporter for the state-run radio station Alger Chaîne III and a contributor to several Algerian newspapers, including the now-banned weekly of the Islamic Salvation Front, Al-Forqane, was abducted near his home in the al-Harrache suburb of the capital, Algiers, by four…

Senegal’s leaders promise new rights, while its laws deny them.

JULY 4, 2005 Posted: July 22, 2005 Frank Boahene, Free Press IMPRISONED, LEGAL ACTION Claude Decker, Free Press Thomas Kpakpo Thompson, Free Press LEGAL ACTION An Accra high court sentenced Boahene, editor of the private weekly, and directors Decker and Thompson to 15 days in prison for contempt of court, according to local sources. Boahene…

Although the Kenya-based East African Standard, one of Africa’s oldest continuously published newspapers, marked its 100th anniversary in November, journalism remains a difficult profession on the continent, with adverse government policies and multifaceted economic woes still undermining the full development of African media.

One year after President John Agyekum Kufuor’s media-friendly government repealed Ghana’s criminal defamation law, the state imposed controls on reporting about interclan clashes in March, after a local tribal king and several of his supporters were killed during a feud between rival clans in the northern Dagbon region. Kufuor declared a state of emergency, which…

Hopes were high in July that Ivory Coast’s political crisis would end after a judge in the capital, Abidjan, confirmed that former prime minister Alassane Dramane Ouattara, the leader of the opposition Rally for Republicans (RDR), is an Ivory Coast citizen.

Your Excellency: CPJ is alarmed that your government has imposed controls on reporting about recent interclan clashes in the northern Dagbon area of Ghana.

Silence reigned supreme in Eritrea, where the entire independent press was under a government ban and 11 journalists languished in jail at year’s end. Clamorous, deadly power struggles raged in Zimbabwe over land and access to information, and in Burundi over ethnicity and control of state resources. South Africa, Senegal, and Benin remained relatively liberal…

After John Agyekum Kufuor was sworn in as Ghana’s new president in January, he promised to make defamation a civil and not a criminal offense. On July 27, Ghana’s parliament unanimously repealed the country’s criminal libel and sedition laws, including clauses governing sedition and defamation of the president. Also scrapped were laws granting the president…

ON SEPTEMBER 27, GHANA’S VIBRANT INDEPENDENT MEDIA hosted Africa’s first-ever live presidential debate in advance of the December 7 national elections. The debates included six out of seven candidates for the presidency, reached an audience of several million Ghanaian voters, and helped boost the international popularity of outgoing president Jerry Rawlings, who stepped aside peacefully…