New York, February 6, 2004—The Daily News, Zimbabwe’s only independent daily, decided not to publish its Friday edition following a Thursday, February 5, Supreme Court ruling upholding legislation that criminalizes the publication of unlicensed newspapers. According to international news reports, the directors of the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), the company that owns the Daily…
New York, February 5, 2004—Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court today upheld legislation that allows the government to decide who can be a journalist and criminalizes the practice of the profession by those who are not approved by the government. “This is a heavy blow to press freedom in Zimbabwe and sends a chilling message to the country’s…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is troubled by the recent criminal charges brought against journalists working for the private weekly newspaper Telegraph. On January 16, Editor-in-Chief Philip Moore Jr., Managing Editor Adolphus Karnuah, and Subeditor Robert Kpadeh Jr. were arrested and brought to the Magistrate Court in the capital, Monrovia, where they were charged with “criminal malevolence.”
New York, January 23, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes the verdict delivered yesterday by a military court in Ivory Coast’s commercial capital, Abidjan, sentencing an Ivoirian police officer to 17 years in prison for the October 2003 murder of Radio France Internationale (RFI) correspondent Jean Hélène. The court found Sgt. Théodore Séry Dago…
New York, January 22, 2004—The Daily News, Zimbabwe’s only independent daily, resumed publication today after police closed it on September 12, 2003, following a Supreme Court declaration that the newspaper was operating illegally. Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), the company that owns the Daily News, had refused to register the newspaper with the government’s Media…
New York, January 14, 2004—Itai Dzamara, a reporter with the Harare-based independent weekly The Independent, and the paper’s general manager, Raphael Khumalo, were arrested today after presenting themselves to police at Harare Central Police Station. Both were summoned yesterday to appear at the station for questioning this morning. The arrests followed the publication of a…
New York, January 6, 2004—Mamane Abou, director of Niger’s private weekly newspaper Le Républicain was released from prison today after spending two months in jail for criminal defamation. An appeals court granted his provisional release pending a second criminal case that has been brought against him, for “theft of documents,” according to one of his…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) calls for a thorough, independent, and immediate investigation into the death of Marco Boukoukou Boussaga, editor-in-chief of the privately owned bimonthly newspaper L’Autre journal, based in the capital, Libreville.
New York, November 25, 2003—The government of Zanzibar, a semiautonomous island off the coast of Tanzania, has ordered the indefinite suspension of the independent weekly Dira, according to local journalists and international press reports. Dira, the island’s most popular newspaper, has been highly critical of the government. Editor Ali Nabwa told CPJ that Dira received…