Namibia / Africa

In a surprise Cabinet shuffle in late August, President Sam Nujoma appointed himself information and broadcasting minister in an effort, he said, to “tackle problems” at the state-owned Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), the country’s largest news outlet.

Namibian journalists worry that President Nujoma is tightening his grip on the media.

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…

Journalists and press freedom advocates from around the world attended a UNESCO conference on press freedom held in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, on May 3, World Press Freedom Day. The conference celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration, which affirmed that a free and pluralistic press is essential for democratic government.

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is disturbed by your recent order banning government agencies from spending public funds to purchase the Windhoek independent daily The Namibian. This decision follows a government advertising ban imposed on the newspaper in December.

NAMIBIA, REGARDED AS A MODEL OF DEMOCRACY, peace, and stability in southern Africa over the past decade, celebrated its 10th anniversary of independence last year, along with the inauguration of President Sam Nujoma to an unprecedented third term in office. The celebrations were marred, however, by the country’s involvement in several armed conflicts and by…

By Claudia McElroyAll over Africa, conflict continued to be the single biggest threat to journalists and to press freedom itself. Both civil and cross-border wars were effectively used as an excuse by governments (and rebel forces) to harass, intimidate, and censor the press–often in the name of “national security”–and in some cases to kill journalists…

Namibia’s reputation as a role model for press freedom in southern Africa, thanks largely to its liberal constitution, took another beating in 1999, as both domestic and foreign conflict had negative repercussions on local media. In January, Prime Minister Hage Geingob admitted in a letter to the independent daily Namibian that the Ministry of Defense…