On Monday, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who will contest for a second term in elections next November, used her annual speech to the legislature to strengthen her image as the candidate of stability and growth. Among other things, she boasted about winning the “Friend of the Media” award from the African Editors Forum, the…
Parliamentary hearings on South Africa’s Protection of Information Bill resumed last week with heated debate over provisions threatening to restrict press freedom and access to information. For journalists, much uncertainty remains over the final product and when it will be completed.
New York, January 13, 2011–Police in Kampala arrested the director and editor of the monthly newsmagazine Summit Business Review on Tuesday in connection with a caricature of President Yoweri Museveni that appeared on the cover of the October issue.Director Samuel Sejjaaka and Editor Mustapha Mugisha were released on bond but face continued interrogations, Sejjaaka told…
New York, January 13, 2010–Zimbabwe’s power-sharing government should repeal the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), the Committee to Protect Journalists said today after a late 2010 amendment to the legislation hiked mandatory registration and accreditation fees for the press working in the country by as much as 400 percent.
In Ivory Coast, the tense post-election dispute between incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo and rival and self-proclaimed president-elect Alassane Ouattara is a power struggle for control of national institutions–including the sole state media outlet, Radiodiffusion Télévision Ivoirienne (RTI).