After a year in jail, editor freed in Sierra Leone
New York, November 30, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Tuesday’s release of jailed journalist Paul Kamara after an appeals court overturned his conviction and two-year sentence for seditious libel. He had served more than a year in prison for articles criticizing President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. “I am happy that I have been acquitted at…
CPJ urges Museveni to drop closure threats against media in Besigye case
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is troubled by restrictions on media freedom in Uganda following the November 14 arrest of opposition leader Kizza Besigye. Your Excellency’s government has instructed journalists not to comment on or discuss Besigye’s upcoming trials on treason, terrorism and rape charges. Ugandan troops today barred journalists from attending Besigye’s court hearing in the capital Kampala, according to Agence France-Presse. Police have also recently harassed staff members of the independent daily The Monitor, impeded its circulation, and threatened to close it down altogether.
Rwandan journalist jailed for one year on contempt charge
New York, November 29, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists today condemned the one-year prison sentence imposed on Jean-Léonard Rugambage, a Rwandan journalist who reported alleged corruption among judges in the semi-traditional “gacaca” courts. Rugambage, a reporter for the twice-monthly newspaper Umuco, also faces charges of participation in the 1994 genocide, but CPJ and others believe…
SOMALIA
NOVEMBER 28, 2005 Posted: December 8, 2005 Ahmed Mohammed Aden, Gedonet Online and Jubba FM Radio IMPRISONED Reporter Aden was jailed in the southern city of Kismayo following an online story claiming that the Jubba Valley Alliance faction had been importing arms in violation of a U.N. arms embargo, the National Union of Somali Journalists…
Two more journalists detained as police raid newspapers and local journalists’ association
New York, November 28, 2005— Ethiopian authorities have arrested another two journalists bringing the number detained since political unrest erupted four weeks ago to at least 12. Sources told the Committee to Protect Journalists that Serkalem Fassil, publisher of the Amharic-language weeklies Menilik, Asqual and Satanaw, and her husband Iskinder Nega who is also a…
Journalist freed without charge after four years in jail
New York, November 21, 2005— The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release of Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaac, who had been jailed without charge since a government crackdown closed the entire independent press in September 2001. Isaac has dual Eritrean and Swedish citizenship. Fourteen journalists remain in Eritrea’s secret jails or otherwise deprived of their…
Journalist jailed for defamation
New York, November 21, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists is outraged that a journalist accused of defaming a government official has been placed in “preventive detention.” Salifou Soumaila Abdoulkarim, director of the private weekly Le Visionnaire, was arrested November 12 after State Treasurer Siddo Elhadj filed a defamation suit, local sources said. “It is outrageous…
KENYA
NOVEMBER 16, 2005 Posted: December 2, 2005 Kass FM CENSORED The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), an official regulatory body, suspended the privately owned radio station Kass FM, which broadcasts in the local Kalenjin language from the capital, Nairobi. Government spokesman Alfred Mutua accused the station of inciting ethnic hatred and violence, but local journalists…
UGANDA
NOVEMBER 15, 2005 POSTED: December 2, 2005 The Monitor HARASSED The government has threatened to close Uganda’s leading independent daily The Monitor over a story about President Yoweri Museveni’s first choice for army chief. Conrad Nkutu, managing director of The Monitor, told the Committee to Protect Journalists that the authorities demanded that the paper retract…