Hunting the Dictator
On February 3, Senegalese authorities indicted former Chadian leader Hissene Habré for torture and other crimes perpetrated by his government in Chad between 1982 and 1990. That same day, the “African Pinochet” was placed under house arrest in the upscale Dakar neighborhood where he has lived for the past decade. It was the first time…
Journalist sentenced to six months for defamation
Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in CAMEROON. New York, April 5, 2000 — On April 3, a criminal court in the western Cameroonian town of Bafoussam convicted Michel Eclador Pekoua on one count of defamation and sentenced him to six months in prison without parole, sources in Cameroon told CPJ. Pekoua…
JOURNALIST MUSSAMO RELEASED ON BAIL AFTER THREE MONTHS IN ILLEGAL DETENTION
Click here to read more about press freedom conditions in Angola. New York, March 29, 2000— Angolan journalist Andre Domigos Mussamo, formerly chief editor of the Cuanza Norte provincial branch of the Angolan National Radio and a correspondent for the biweekly Folha 8, posted bail and was released from prison around March 16, sources in…
Côte d’Ivoire: Despite promises to respect press freedom, military regime cracks down on local media
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply disturbed by several serious, recent press freedom violations in Côte d’Ivoire. Upon seizing power in December 1999, Your Excellency promised that freedom of expression would be respected. Since then, however, soldiers close to the ruling National Public Salvation Committee (CNSP) have conducted raids on several Abidjan-based publications.
Attacks on the Press 1999: Preface
By Philip GourevitchNearly a hundred years ago, in Boston, the Congo Reform Association published a pamphlet by Mark Twain, titled King Leopold’s Soliloquy, A Defense of His Congo Rule (1905). The text is an imagined monologue by the Belgian monarch, delivered as he reads through stacks of literature protesting the systematic murder and mutilation of…
Attacks on the Press 1999: Introduction
By Ann CooperAs a foreign correspondent covering the Soviet Union a decade ago, I was an eyewitness to a dramatic example of the press’ critical role in building democracy. Granted a bit of freedom by Mikhail Gorbachev’s mid-1980s glasnost policy, long-suppressed Soviet journalists set their own daring agenda: they probed forbidden history, investigated contemporary corruption,…
Attacks on the Press 1999: Africa Analysis
By Claudia McElroyAll over Africa, conflict continued to be the single biggest threat to journalists and to press freedom itself. Both civil and cross-border wars were effectively used as an excuse by governments (and rebel forces) to harass, intimidate, and censor the press–often in the name of “national security”–and in some cases to kill journalists…