Africa

New York, January 27, 2009–The editor of an independent newspaper in the West African nation of Niger was jailed Monday in connection with an investigative story alleging corruption in the finance ministry, according to local journalists. 

OCTOBER 27, 2008 Le Mbadja Le Scribouillard CENSORED The National Communications Council (CNC) suspended bimonthly Le Mbadja and weekly Le Scribouillard from circulation for allegedly violating journalism ethics, according to journalists in the capital, Libreville. The suspension occurred one week after the CNC asked editors from 11 newspapers to stop using nicknames for politicians. Guy…

The Hong Kong police announced on Monday they would investigate the alleged assault on photographer Richard Jones by Zimbabwe’s first lady, Grace Mugabe, while she was on vacation. On January 15, Jones claimed Mugabe ordered her bodyguard to hold the photographer down while she punched him repeatedly in the face near Hong Kong’s exclusive Shangri-la…

Agence France-Presse has coverage of our letter sent to Cameroonian President Paul Biya on January 16. The letter protested the jailing of four Cameroonian journalists, which makes the country Africa’s second-leading jailer of journalists. The reporters have been held since September on charges of criminal defamation. AFP quotes CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon: “The journalists…

On Friday, as we welcomed the release of a journalist kidnapped in Somalia, we received a compelling account from a freelance reporter working in the capital, Mogadishu. Our colleague describes the perils of working in a city where journalists operate at the mercy of warring insurgents and government troops, and throughout Somalia, one of the world’s…

New York, January 16, 2009–CPJ welcomes the release of a freelance Somali photojournalist and two Somali drivers on Thursday but remains deeply concerned for the fate of two foreign freelance reporters who have been held since their abduction on August 23, 2008, by unknown gunmen.

New York, January 16, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the health of a Zimbabwean photojournalist who was denied bail today despite allegations that he was tortured while in police detention in the capital Harare. 

Dear President Biya: We are writing to express our alarm that four newspaper editors have been jailed in Cameroon for their work since September–making your country the second-worst jailer of journalists in Africa, according to our research.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki says he will reconsider the deeply flawed communications legislation that he signed into law at the beginning of the year. Kibaki said he would direct the Information Ministry and attorney general to consider the concerns of Kenya’s media and present them to the cabinet for possible legislative revision. CPJ and other…