New York, August 22, 2003—Earlier this month, Gambian police assaulted Buya Jammeh, a reporter for the English-language biweekly The Independent, near the newspaper’s offices in the capital, Banjul. According to sources familiar with the incident, on August 9, two police officers stationed a short distance from the newspaper stopped Jammeh on his way to a…
New York, August 21, 2003—Earlier this month, a group of young men brutally assaulted Flata Kavinga, a reporter for Zimbabwe’s English-language weekly The Midlands Observer. According to sources familiar with the incident, on August 8, six men—at least two of whom were members of Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF—approached the reporter outside a nightclub in Kwekwe, a…
New York, August 6, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled that Sudanese free-lance journalist Youssef al-Bashir Moussa, a contributor to the private daily Al-Sahafa, has been jailed for more than a week. Editors at Al-Sahafa told CPJ that the paper ran a story by Moussa on July 28 reporting that several students…
July 25, 2003, New York—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemns the July 12 decision by a Khartoum criminal court to cancel the license of the Khartoum Monitor, ceasing publication of the English-language daily. According to Nhial Bol, editor of the Khartoum Monitor, the court canceled the paper’s license because of an interview it published…
New York, July 24, 2003—Dimas Dzikodo, editor-in-chief of the independent weekly L’Evenement, was released from prison this morning after his lawyers paid his 500,000 CFA franc (US$864) fine for “attempting to publish false information,” sources in the capital, Lomé, told CPJ today. Dzikodo was arrested at a cybercafé in Lomé on June 14 while he…
New York, July 23, 2003—French photographer Patrick Robert, who was injured while on assignment in Liberia’s capital, Monrovia, for the U.S.-based weekly Time magazine, was flown out of the country this morning. Robert was hit by bullets in his back and arm on July 19 while covering the recent increase in fighting between forces loyal…
New York, July 23, 2003—Two of three journalists who have been imprisoned in Togo for more than a month were released early this morning from custody. Philip Evégnon, publication director of the private weekly L’Evenement, and Jean de Dieu Kpakpabia, journalist at the private weekly Nouvel Echo, were acquitted of “attempting to publish false information…
New York, July 15, 2003—Three imprisoned Togolese journalists announced yesterday morning that they would begin a 48-hour hunger strike to protest their continued detention on charges of “publishing false information and disturbing public order.” Dimas Dzikodo and Philip Evégnon, editor-in-chief and publication director, respectively, of the private weekly L’Evenement, and Jean de Dieu Kpakpabia, journalist…