New York, October 4, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by reports that a correspondent for the private daily L’Inter has gone missing from the rebel-held town of Bouake after receiving threats from rebels. Amadou Dagnogo was last seen on August 28 by a neighbor, according to L’Inter Editor Charles d’Almeida. Before disappearing,…
New York, September 23, 2004—Two journalists and the general manager of the weekly Zimbabwe Independent were detained today for about six hours, charged under Zimbabwe’s repressive media law, and told to report back to police next Tuesday for a court appearance, according to local journalists and a defense lawyer for the three. The charges stem…
New York, September 21, 2004—On Monday, September 20, a magistrate’s court in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, acquitted four directors of the independent, banned newspaper the Daily News, who had been charged with publishing the newspaper illegally. The court ruled that the state had “failed to show a prima facie case against the accused,” according to international…
Your Excellency: We are writing to express alarm over the deteriorating human rights situation and growing repression of freedom of expression in Eritrea. In particular, we are concerned about the ban that your government has imposed on all independent non-governmental press since September 2001, when an unknown number of critics of your government were detained. Those detained include more than a dozen journalists who have been incarcerated for over three years without being formally charged.
New York, September 17, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists and nine other nongovernmental organizations today wrote to Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki expressing alarm at his government’s growing repression of press freedom and calling for the release of 17 jailed journalists. The letter marks the three-year anniversary, on September 18, of a brutal clampdown in which…
New York, September 15, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply troubled by the continued detention of Isaac Umunna, an editorial consultant to the private, Lagos-based weekly Global Star as well as the general editor of Africa Today, a monthly news magazine based in London. On September 8, members of Nigeria’s State Security Service (SSS)…
Unrest shatters press freedom gains in the Democratic Republic of Congo with attacks and imprisonments surging yet again.A Special report by Julia Crawford The fragile state of press freedom in the Democratic Republic of Congo was shattered when the eastern city of Bukavu fell briefly to Rwandan-backed rebels in early June. State-imposed restrictions and imprisonment,…
New York, September 10, 2004—The last remaining foreign correspondent in Eritrea left the country yesterday after the government ordered his expulsion, he told the Committee to Protect Journalists in an interview today. Jonah Fisher, who worked in Eritrea for 18 months as correspondent for the BBC and Reuters, said authorities gave no reason for his…
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply disturbed by an alarming government attack against the Lagos-based news magazine Insider Weekly, one that is fundamentally at odds with the most basic democratic principles. Members of the State Security Service (SSS) recently raided the newspaper, arrested employees, seized equipment, censored the news, and shut its…