Africa

Dear Mr. President: We are writing to express our concern over the lack of progress in the police investigation into the brutal murder of journalist Francis Kainda Nyaruri. In January, CPJ urged the police to investigate Nyaruri’s murder, whose slashed and decapitated body was found January 29 in Kodere Forest near his hometown of Nyamira.

News that a judge in France froze the private bank accounts of Gabon’s President Omar Bongo was all over the international media but barely a word appeared in the national press.

In a ruling issued on January 9, 2009, the state-run media regulator, the High Communication Council, suspended from circulation the private daily Le Citoyen for one month for allegedly violating journalism ethics, according to news reports and local journalists.  

An appeals court in the Senegalese capital of Dakar upheld a three-year prison sentence against imprisoned editor El Malick Seck on February 23, 2009, according to international and local news reports. The case involved an editorial implicating President Abdoulaye Wade and his son Karim in an alleged money-laundering scandal.

A week ago today, CPJ sent a letter of concern to President Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso urging his government to investigate a series of death threats sent in the past year or so via e-mail to independent journalists there. Using Yahoo France accounts, senders have boasted about intimidating the press in impunity by referencing…

This week in the mountain Kingdom of Swaziland, the state-owned daily Swazi Observer reported that an official has apologized for summarily dismissing a female reporter from Parliament nearly two weeks ago. It was the latest in a controversy sparked by allegations of gender discrimination against Mantoe Phakathi, an award-winning journalist with the private monthly The…

We received good news this morning from The Hague, where the presiding judge in the war crimes trial of Charles Taylor dismissed a request to compel Liberian journalist Hassan Bility to reveal the identity of a confidential source. 

Filmmaker Robyn Kriel, 25, from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, spoke to PBS’ Wide Angle last week about the risks she took reporting from Zimbabwe in the lead-up to the country’s 2008 presidential election. Last April, CPJ closely followed the case of Kriel’s mother, Margaret Kriel, who was imprisoned for four days on accusations of “practicing journalism without accreditation.” You…

Dear Mr. President: We are writing to express concern about a series of death threats aimed at independent journalists that have referenced the unsolved murder of investigative journalist Norbert Zongo in 1998. We call on you to ensure that the government thoroughly investigates these threats and protect the well-being of all journalists.

Dear Prime Minister: The decision to form a unified government in Zimbabwe has created a welcome opportunity to address oppressive government decrees and media laws that have long stifled press freedom. Your party, the Movement for Democratic Change, has long made freedom of the press a central policy and you have repeatedly stated your aspirations to privatize the state-controlled media.