After U.S. President George W. Bush claimed in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy uranium from the impoverished West African country of Niger, outraged journalists and President Mamadou Tandja, who has led the nation since its return to civilian rule in 1999, rallied to the…
The U.S. media went to war in 2003, with both embedded and independent reporters pouring into Iraq to cover the U.S.-led invasion and its aftermath. U.S. officials called the invasion the best-covered conflict in history, but it was also one of the most deadly for journalists. All told, 19 reporters died while working in Iraq,…
There were 138 journalists in prison around the world at the end of 2003 who were jailed for practicing their profession. The number is the same as last year. An analysis of the reasons behind this is contained in the introduction on page 10. At the beginning of 2004, CPJ sent letters of inquiry to…
New York, January 6, 2004—Mamane Abou, director of Niger’s private weekly newspaper Le Républicain was released from prison today after spending two months in jail for criminal defamation. An appeals court granted his provisional release pending a second criminal case that has been brought against him, for “theft of documents,” according to one of his…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the imprisonment of Maman Abou, director of the private weekly newspaper Le Républicain. At a closed, secret trial on November 7, Abou was sentenced to six months in prison for criminal defamation. Neither Abou nor his lawyers were present at the trial, according to Abou’s colleagues, who are in constant contact with him. Abou is currently being held at the Central Prison in the capital, Niamey.
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned by the continued imprisonment of Ibrahim Souley, the publication director of the private weekly L’Enquêteur. Souley is expected to face trial tomorrow on charges of spreading propaganda and “inciting ethnic hatred.”
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.
In early August, a military uprising in the eastern Diffa Region by soldiers demanding salary arrears jeopardized Niger’s fragile democracy. The mutiny was the first serious challenge to civilian rule since the election of President Mamadou Tandja in December 1999. Before that election, the country had experienced two coups in three years. Anxious to restore…
New York, February 26, 2003–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release from prison of Abdoulaye Tiémogo, an editor at the weekly Le Canard Déchaîné, which is based in Niger’s capital, Niamey. Tiémogo, who was freed on Tuesday, February 18, after completing his eight-month prison sentence, was arrested on June 18, 2002, for allegedly defaming…