DJIBOUTI
JANUARY 14, 2005 Posted: February 16, 2005 Radio France Internationale CENSORED Officials cut radio France Internationale’s (RFI) FM broadcasts in the country. According to RFI and French media reports, Djiboutian authorities silenced the broadcaster because of its report on an ongoing French legal inquiry into the 1995 death in Djibouti of Bernard Borrel, a French…
SIERRA LEONE
JANUARY 14, 2005 Posted: January 27, 2005 Philip Neville, The Standard Times Unissa Bangura, The Standard Times The Standard TimesHARASSED Detectives from the government’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) raided the offices of the privately owned Standard Times in the capital, Freetown, and closed the paper for a day, according to the newspaper’s staff. The detectives searched…
COMOROS
JANUARY 13, 2005 Posted: February 4, 2005 Radio Dzialandzé Mutsamudu CENSORED Interior and Information Minister Djanffar Salim ordered the suspension of all news broadcasts on Radio Dzialandzé Mutsamudu (RDM), a popular, privately owned station based in Mutsamudu, capital of the semi-autonomous island of Anjouan.
KENYA
JANUARY 13, 2005 Posted: February 8, 2005 Kamau Ngotho, The East African Standard HARASSED, LEGAL ACTION Journalist Ngotho was charged with criminal libel in a Nairobi court in connection with a story he wrote in the January 8 issue of the daily East African Standard detailing alleged links between the government of President Mwai Kibaki…
CAMEROON
JANUARY 10, 2005 Updated: February 15, 2005 Jules Koum Koum, Le Jeune Observateur LEGAL ACTION, IMPRISONED Jules Koum Koum, publication director of the private bimonthly Le Jeune Observateur, was sentenced to six months in prison for allegedly defaming the CPA insurance company in an article published in February 2004.
In Zimbabwe, Mugabe signs repressive new media law
New York, January 10, 2005 —Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has signed into law a measure that sets prison terms of up to two years for any journalist found working without accreditation from the government-controlled Media and Information Commission. The Committee to Protect Journalists urges Mugabe and his government to turn away from such measures, including…
CPJ condemns attack on journalists
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by the recent violent attack on journalists by government security forces. On Tuesday, January 4, police acting as security at a meeting of the National Executive Council of Your Excellency’s ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the capital, Abuja, assaulted at least 10 journalists who were covering the meeting.