Africa

New York, January 5, 2012–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Friday’s decision by a judge in Abidjan to release on bail former Ivorian state television presenter Hermann Aboa and calls on prosecutors to drop the politicized charges against him.

New York, January 5, 2012–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities in the semi-autonomous Somali region of Puntland to explain why they have held two journalists without charge since Monday.

New York, January 5, 2012–The government of Gabon, led by President Ali Bongo, on Tuesday imposed suspensions on a TV station and a newspaper for coverage of opposition leader André Mba Obame, according to local journalists and news reports.

New York, January 4, 2012–Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo shut down broadcasts of the French government-funded Radio France Internationale over its coverage of the aftermath of the November 2011 presidential elections, news reports said.

Just over 55 years ago, on New Year’s Eve 1957, trailblazing South African journalist Henry Nxumalo was murdered while investigating suspicious deaths at an abortion clinic in Sophiatown, a suburb west of Johannesburg.

New York, December 27, 2011–In a highly politicized trial, two Swedish journalists have been sentenced in an Ethiopian court to 11-year jail terms after being convicted of supporting terrorism and entering the country illegally, according to news reports.

New York, December 22, 2011–Authorities in Tanzania have arrested and charged a columnist and an editor with inciting the police force to subordinate in connection with an editorial critical of the government, according to local journalists and news reports. The printer of the publication has also been summoned to court twice in relation to the…

New York, December 21, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns an Ethiopian court’s decision to convict two Swedish photojournalists today in what appears to be a politicized trial.