Freedom of information laws struggle to take hold in Africa
In Uganda, a ruling this week in a landmark case of two journalists seeking to compel their government’s disclosure of multinationals oil deals highlighted the challenges to public transparency just before media leaders, press freedom advocates, officials, and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter gather in Ghana next week at the African Regional Conference on the Right…
Journalist flees Zimbabwe after death threat
New York, January 20, 2010—Freelance journalist Stanley Kwenda, left, a contributor to the private weekly The Zimbabwean, fled the country on Friday after he said he received a telephone threat from a high-ranking police officer, according to the paper’s editor, Wilf Mbanga.
NABJ honors persecuted Zimbabwean journalist
On Thursday, the U.S.-based National Association of Black Journalists announced the winner of its 2009 Percy Qoboza Foreign Journalists Award: Zimbabwean journalist Anderson Shadreck Manyere. Half a world away, however, Manyere, left, lingered in a hospital in the capital, Harare, traumatized by nearly four months of imprisonment, according to his lawyer.
Underground Zimbabwe: Interview with Robyn Kriel
Filmmaker Robyn Kriel, 25, from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, spoke to PBS’ Wide Angle last week about the risks she took reporting from Zimbabwe in the lead-up to the country’s 2008 presidential election. Last April, CPJ closely followed the case of Kriel’s mother, Margaret Kriel, who was imprisoned for four days on accusations of “practicing journalism without accreditation.” You…
CPJ urges Zimbabwe to improve media climate
Dear Prime Minister: The decision to form a unified government in Zimbabwe has created a welcome opportunity to address oppressive government decrees and media laws that have long stifled press freedom. Your party, the Movement for Democratic Change, has long made freedom of the press a central policy and you have repeatedly stated your aspirations to privatize the state-controlled media.