New York, June 25, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed that Ugandan authorities have closed the Catholic Churchowned Radio Kyoga Veritas FM, in the northeastern town of Soroti, for airing reports about fighting in the region between government forces and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). On the afternoon of Sunday, June 22, police…
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.
Uganda was the only country in Africa where a journalist was killed in 2002. Jimmy Higenyi, a student at the private journalism school United Media Consultants and Trainers, was shot by police while covering a rally of the opposition party Uganda People’s Congress in the capital, Kampala, on January 12. The government had banned the…
New York, October 15, 2002—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly condemns the Ugandan government’s raid on the Monitor media group, the detention of one of the organization’s reporters, and the charges filed against three Monitor editors. On October 10, three dozen police officers occupied the newsrooms of the private English-language daily Monitor and its…
Silence reigned supreme in Eritrea, where the entire independent press was under a government ban and 11 journalists languished in jail at year’s end. Clamorous, deadly power struggles raged in Zimbabwe over land and access to information, and in Burundi over ethnicity and control of state resources. South Africa, Senegal, and Benin remained relatively liberal…
Despite a stiff challenge from his former protégé Kiiza Besigye, President Yoweri Museveni was reelected in March, fifteen years after he pioneered Uganda’s controversial “no party” political system. During the heated election campaign, there were allegations that the president’s office had tried to “vet” articles and columns in New Vision, a government daily. The paper…
Since its founding in 1981, CPJ has, as a matter of strategy and policy, concentrated on press freedom violations and attacks against journalists outside the United States. Within the country, a vital press freedom community marshals its resources and expertise to defend journalists’ rights. CPJ aims to focus its efforts on those nations where journalists…