Abuja, Nigeria, September 29, 2016 — Nigerian authorities should immediately release at least 11 journalists, bloggers, and media support staff detained in recent days across the country and stop harassing the media, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Since Nigeria’s cybercrime act was voted into law in May 2015 authorities have used the accusation of cyber stalking to harass and press charges against at least five bloggers who criticized politicians and businessmen online and through social media.
Three operatives of the State Security Service, Nigeria’s secret police, on September 6 arrested Emenike Iroegbu, who runs the news website Abia Facts, from his home in Uyo, the capital of the southern state of Akwa Ibom, on suspicion of libelling the governor of neighboring Abia state, according to news reports. The operatives searched Iroegbu’s…
Abuja, Nigeria, August 18, 2016 — The Nigerian military should cease threatening freelance journalist Ahmad Salkida with prosecution for not acting as an informer, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The military has said the journalist could face terrorism charges if he does not provide it with information he gained in the course of…
Nine armed agents of Nigeria’s Department of State Service, an elite police force, arrested Jones Abiri, the publisher of the Weekly Source tabloid newspaper, from his offices in Yenagoa, in the oil-rich southern Nigeria state of Bayelsa, on July 21, 2016, according to news reports. The operatives searched Abiri’s office and confiscated documents, the reports…
CPJ Newsletter: June edition Khadija Ismayilova thanks CPJ, says she will fight for her cause Khadija’s first photo after jail pic.twitter.com/sj358k5WdU — Khadija Ismayilova (@Khadija_Ismayil) May 25, 2016 CPJ Europe and Central Asia Senior Research Associate Muzaffar Suleymanov spoke to investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova a few hours after her release from prison on May 25.
Police and officials from the Benue State Water Board detained Pius Iroja Angbo, a correspondent with the independent Channels Television, and cameraman Mike Umele, for roughly four hours on May 18, 2016, Angbo told the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Nigerian military authorities on Monday May 9, 2016 barred journalists from covering the trial of Patrick Falola and Ibrahim Sani, both army major-generals, who are being tried by a court-martial in the capital Abuja, according to news reports.
New York, May 3, 2016 – Nigerian authorities should drop all criminal charges against journalist Jacob Onjewu Dickson and release him without delay, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Dickson has been held in pre-trial detention on incitement charges since Friday.
CPJ writes to Nigerian Police Inspector General Solomon Arase to urge him to arrest those responsible for beating publisher Yomi Olomofe into a coma in June 2015, rather than investigating the publisher on charges of assaulting his assailants.