Africa

For the fourth consecutive year, at least 250 journalists are imprisoned globally as authoritarians like Xi Jinping, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Mohammed bin Salman, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi show no signs of letting up on the critical media. A CPJ special report by Elana Beiser

The ongoing detentions of Nigerian publisher Agba Jalingo and Ethiopian editor Fekadu Mahtemework–the only journalists behind bars for their work in their countries, according to CPJ’s latest prison census–don’t tell the whole story of their governments’ crackdowns on freedom of expression.

New York, December 10, 2019—Nigerian authorities should halt all efforts to intimidate journalists working with the U.S.-headquartered, Nigeria-focused Sahara Reporters news website and ensure they are permitted to continue working to report the news, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Abuja, November 19, 2019 — Nigerian authorities should investigate and hold accountable those responsible for the harassment of journalists working to cover the November 16 gubernatorial and federal assembly elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today

Nairobi, November 19, 2019–The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on authorities in the breakaway region of Somaliland to immediately allow the privately owned Horn Cable TV to operate freely and to unconditionally release its chief editor, Abdiqaadir Saleban Aseyr, also known as Coday.

Abuja, November 15, 2019 – Nigerian authorities should investigate attacks by security forces on journalists at a recent protest in Abuja, and hold those responsible to account, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

He couldn’t have known it at the time, but when a Moroccan court sentenced editor Mohammed al-Herd on August 4, 2003, to three years in prison, he was emblematic of a new trend, one that would accelerate and continue to the present day.

On October 21, 2019, police arrested Achiko Ngaya, editor of the privately owned newspaper Les Nouvelles du Soir, in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ngaya told CPJ. The journalist said he was detained for five days and charged with criminal defamation.

On September 8, 2019, bodyguards of Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio attacked three journalists who were covering a football match in Freetown, the capital, according to the journalists, who spoke to CPJ, and news reports.

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 64 other civil society organizations in calling on the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) to address serious and systematic human rights violations in Cameroon, including the jailing of journalists.