Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is gravely disturbed by a National Assembly member’s recent attempt to strangle journalist Chahana Takiou of the private biweekly newspaper L’Independant. This bizarre incident occurred August 30 inside the National Assembly building in the capital, Bamako, CPJ sources say. Takiou was apparently reporting a story when Mamadou Gassama Diaby, a member of parliament from the ruling Democratic Alliance of Mali (ADEMA), assaulted him. Diaby punched and kicked Takiou several times before seizing him by the neck and attempting to throttle him.
For some delegates, just getting to the West African Journalists Association (WAJA) regional conference in Dakar, Senegal, was an impressive achievement. While his colleagues used more conventional modes of transportation, Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) president Frank Kposowa navigated his way out of the country by night in a hired motorized dugout canoe. The…