Gambian journalist, broadcast executive held without charge
Abuja, Nigeria, November 18, 2016–Gambian authorities should immediately release a journalist and the head of the state-owned broadcaster who have been held without charge or access to their families or lawyers for a week, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The arrests came in the run-up to presidential elections scheduled to take place on…
Ethiopian newspaper editor, bloggers caught in worsening crackdown
Nairobi, November 17, 2016–Ethiopia should immediately release all journalists detained amid an intensifying crackdown on the media, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. In recent weeks, Ethiopian authorities have jailed a newspaper editor and detained two members of the award-winning Zone 9 bloggers’ collective, which has faced continuous legal harassment on terrorism and incitement…
Gabon newspaper raided, deputy editor alleges torture
On November 3, 2016, officers from Gabon’s domestic intelligence agency, the Directorate of Documentation and Immigration (DGDI, by its French acronym), armed with semi-automatic weapons, raided the office of the weekly newspaper Echos du Nord in the capital, Libreville, and arrested nine journalists and four other staff members, according to press reports.
For Zambia’s press, election year brings assaults and shut down orders
Zambia’s press has come under sustained assault in this election year, with station licenses suspended, journalists harassed or arrested for critical coverage, and one of the country’s largest privately owned papers, The Post, being provisionally liquidated in a move that its editors say is politically motivated.
Getting Away With Murder
CPJ’s 2016 Global Impunity Index spotlights countries where journalists are slain and the killers go free By Elisabeth Witchel, CPJ Impunity Campaign Consultant Published October 27, 2016. Some of the highest rates of impunity in the murders of journalists can be attributed to killings by Islamist militant groups, CPJ found in its latest Global Impunity…
Mounting press freedom crisis in Burundi
Nairobi, October 25, 2016–The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed alarm about the deteriorating situation for the media in Burundi. In the past three days alone, the Interior Ministry closed the country’s journalists’ union and security forces detained reporters on assignment.
Ethiopia’s state of emergency cuts lines of communication and puts bloggers at risk of arrest
On October 4, I heard that my friend Natnael Feleke had not returned home even though it was approaching midnight in Ethiopia. Family and friends were discussing where to search for the blogger, who had only been released 11 months earlier from the notorious Kilinto prison, where he was held for 16 months over his…
Nigeria religious police assault journalists
Four representatives of the Kano State Hisbah Board, a local security agency set up to enforce its interpretation of Sharia law, on August 27, 2016, assaulted two journalists from private broadcaster Express Radio, according to news reports. The religious police were angry that Express Radio correspondent Abdullahi Isa brought two female journalists–Hauwa Musa Abdullahi, a…
Liberian newspaper publisher arrested over civil libel case
Philipbert Browne, the publisher of Liberia’s Hot Pepper newspaper, was arrested at his office and jailed at the Monrovia Central Prison in the Liberian capital on October 7, 2016, for libel on the orders of a Civil Law Court over a story in his paper titled, “During Ebola Time: ‘I Lost My Virginity'” published the…