Africa

April 15, 2006 Posted: April 17, 2006 René Dillah Yombirim, BBC and Radiodiffusion Nationale Tchadienne (RNT) ATTACKED Security forces detained Yombirim, a correspondent for the BBC and state-owned radio, while he was interviewing residents in the capital, N’Djamena, following an attempt by rebels to overthrow the government of President Idriss Déby. Local journalists told CPJ…

April 12, 2006 Posted: April 17, 2006 Alfred Egbegi, Izon Link HARASSED, THREATENED, LEGAL ACTION Police detained Egbegi, publisher of the weekly tabloid newspaper Izon Link, in Yenagoa, the capital of southern Bayelsa State. Egbegi was released on bail after several hours in custody. The following day, he appeared before a Yenagoa magistrate, who charged…

New York, April 12, 2006—Rebel fighters abducted a journalist on Tuesday when they seized the central Chadian town of Mongo, the head of the Union of Chadian Journalists, Evariste Toldé, told the Committee to Protect Journalists today. Eliakim Vanambyl, editor at the N’Djamena-based radio station FM Liberté, had traveled to Mongo to report on a…

New York, April 12, 2006—A third journalist from The Independent, a leading Gambian newspaper, was arrested at his home this afternoon, according to his colleagues. Reporter Lamin Fatty’s arrest follows that of Editor Musa Saidykhan and General Manager Madi Ceesay, who have been detained without charge since March 28. Fatty was the author of a…

New York, April 11, 2006–The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about newspaper publisher Patrice Booto, who has been in jail in the capital, Kinshasa, since November 2, 2005. Booto recently told a representative of Journaliste en Danger (JED), a Kinshasa-based press freedom organization, that he was suffering from several health problems and had…

New York, April 12, 2006—A third journalist from The Independent, a leading Gambian newspaper, was arrested at his home this afternoon, according to his colleagues. Reporter Lamin Fatty’s arrest follows that of Editor Musa Saidykhan and General Manager Madi Ceesay, who have been detained without charge since March 28. Fatty was the author of a…

New York, April 6, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists today expressed grave concerns about the prolonged, unexplained detention of two Gambian journalists in a letter to that country’s ambassador to the United Nations, Crispin Grey-Johnson. CPJ representatives hand delivered the message to the Gambian mission to the United Nations, and urged Grey-Johnson to convey the…

New York, April 5, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by Niger’s attempt to censor coverage of hunger and malnutrition in parts of the West African state. The government withdrew accreditation last week from a BBC television crew after it reported on hunger in the central region of Maradi and has forbidden officials to…

Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the detention since early Tuesday of two senior journalists for the private newspaper The Independent, whose offices were also sealed off by security forces. Editor Musa Saidykhan and General Manager Madi Ceesay, who is also secretary-general of the Gambia Press Union, have now been in custody for more than three days without being informed of the reasons, according to CPJ sources. Gambian law normally requires that they be brought before a court within a three-day period, a local lawyer confirmed.