New York, May 15, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is alarmed by recent measures taken against the press in Sudan, including the arrest of one journalist and the closure of a newspaper. Noureddin Madani, editor of the daily Al-Sahafa, told CPJ that Yousef al-Bashir Moussa, the newspaper’s correspondent in the city of Nyala, (about…
New York, May 8, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned for the safety of Andrew Meldrum, Zimbabwe correspondent for the U.K.-based newspaper The Guardian. A group of immigration officers visited the journalist’s home unannounced yesterday evening and demanded to speak with Meldrum, according to his wife.
New York, May 7, 2003—Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court ruled today that a section of the controversial Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) that criminalizes “publishing falsehoods” is unconstitutional. Section 80 of AIPPA stipulated that it was an “abuse of journalistic privilege” to publish false information, whether it was intentional or not. Journalists convicted…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned about the deteriorating press freedom climate in Cameroon following the detention of three journalists from Cameroon’s only independent daily, Mutations, and the closure of the private radio station Magic FM. On April 13, the Société de presse et d’édition du Cameroun (Sopécam), a state-owned printing…
New York, April 16, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) urges Nigeria’s newly elected lawmakers to pass the Freedom of Information Bill, which has stalled in the Lower House of Parliament for more than three years. The bill, first proposed in December 1999 and modeled after the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, is endorsed by…
New York, April 11, 2003—Recently appointed Minister of Information Abednego Ntshangase announced on Tuesday, April 8, a new censorship policy for state media in the southern African kingdom of Swaziland. Speaking at his first appearance under his new portfolio before the House of Assembly, Ntshangase told parliamentarians, “The national television and radio stations are not…
New York, April 8, 2003—Kenyan president Emilio Mwai Kibaki, who was elected in December 2002, has instructed his lawyers to file contempt-of-court charges against two private dailies. The charges stem from stories that appeared in the March 31 editions of the independent East African Standard and the Kenya Times about a court case filed against…
Many reporters find themselves in a dilemma when the press comes under attack. Our pride, our institutional and tribal loyalties, all clamor for a retort. We may be the bearers of bad tidings, but we are not their cause. If the truth is inimical to you, we want to argue, assailing us will not alter…
Although the Kenya-based East African Standard, one of Africa’s oldest continuously published newspapers, marked its 100th anniversary in November, journalism remains a difficult profession on the continent, with adverse government policies and multifaceted economic woes still undermining the full development of African media.
On February 21, Angola’s government announced that its troops had killed Jonas Savimbi, who led the UNITA rebel group’s fight for power in oil-rich Angola for more than 30 years. That same day, state television ran a special news program featuring Savimbi’s corpse filmed from several angles with repeated close-ups of his neck, where the…