Africa

New York, August 29, 2011–Authorities in Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland should conduct a thorough investigation into a grenade attack against a private radio station that left a security guard injured and the station damaged, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. “This is the second attack on Radio Daljir,” said CPJ East Africa Coordinator Tom…

An estimated 200 Congolese journalists marched to the National Assembly in Kinshasa on Friday to show their outrage over reports that supporters of incumbent President Joseph Kabila have physically and verbally abused members of the press. 

New York, August 25, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo to investigate allegations of threats made earlier this month by a member of parliament against a journalist. The politician’s threats were caught on an audio recording of the phone call, which was widely posted on the Internet.

Somalia was among the world’s deadliest countries for journalists in 2009, the year I began working with CPJ’s Journalist Assistance program. On June 7, two gunmen shot Mukhtar Mohamed Hirabe and Ahmed Omar Hashi, the director and news editor of the country’s leading independent station, Radio Shabelle. Hirabe died at the scene. Hashi barely survived…

New York, August 16, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists is troubled that Angolan immigration authorities barred Joana Macie and Manuel Cossa, two Mozambican journalists, from entering the country on Thursday, claiming they lacked the proper entry visas.

New York, August 12, 2011–Gambian state security agency forced radio station Taranga FM to drop its popular news and current affairs programs for the second time this year, local journalists said. The National Intelligence Agency (NIA) threatened to close the community station southwest of the capital, Banjul, if the broadcaster did not drop its daily…

It’s possible that no journalist in the world has received more court summonses in recent weeks than Editor Bob Rugurika of Burundi’s Radio Publique Africaine (RPA), a station founded by CPJ award-winner Alexis Sinduhije.On Tuesday, for the fifth time since July 18, Rugurika was interrogated by a magistrate in the capital, Bujumbura, about programs aired…

New York, August 9, 2011–Prison officials in western Kenya attacked three journalists working for the private broadcaster Nation Television (NTV) as they were covering an escape attempt by six inmates on Sunday, local journalists told CPJ.

Dozens of Togolese journalists marched in the capital, Lomé, on Saturday to call attention to reported allegations that government security agents planned to retaliate against critical reporters. The allegations themselves are in dispute–the government called them “fabricated”–but they are set against a recent U.N. report expressing concern over the official use of arbitrary detention and…