Tom Rhodes/CPJ East Africa Representative

Tom Rhodes is CPJ's East Africa representative, based in Nairobi. Rhodes is a founder of southern Sudan’s first independent newspaper. Follow him on Twitter: @africamedia_CPJ

Remembering Camille Lepage

“Not sure I can talk about my ‘career’ just yet–I’m still just getting started!” freelance photographer Camille Lepage told the photography site Petapixel in October 2013.Less than a year later, Lepage’s body was found in a car in the Central African Republic, according to news reports citing the French government. She had been traveling with fighters of…

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Somali families are boarded onto lorries from Eastleigh, Nairobi, and sent to one of two refugee camps. (Mohamed Adow)

Kenya must consider plight of refugee journalists

Today, CPJ partnered with Reporters Without Borders and Rory Peck Trust in a joint open letter calling on Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary of Interior, Joseph Ole Lenku, to provide clarity on the government’s refugee policy and to exempt journalists from forced relocation to the refugee camps. On March 25, Lenku ordered all urban refugees to relocate…

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An international journalist was denied entry to Rwanda after discovering that a pro-government Twitter account had been falsified by someone within the office of President Paul Kagame, pictured. (Reuters/Ruben Sprich)

Twitter war shines light on how Rwanda intimidates press

“@RFI speak straight up English, frenchie!! U crying? U started not to make sense,” was one taunting tweet from a certain prolific Twitter account belonging to “Richard Goldston.” The account, since deleted, belonging to a self-proclaimed “anti-imperialist,” repeatedly antagonized Radio France Internationale journalist Sonia Rolley for her critical coverage of the deaths of Rwandan government…

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Not a single local news station is operating full-time in the town of Malakal, which has been ravaged by the fighting. (Al-Jazeera/Emre Rende)

South Sudanese towns suffer information vacuum

“This is the worst situation I ever reported since I started reporting in 2007,” BBC Media Action producer Manyang David Mayar told me after he left the restive town of Bor, Jonglei State in South Sudan. Forced to walk long distances carrying his suitcase on his head to escape the fighting in Bor, Mayar drank…

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Berhane Tesfaye and her son, Fiteh, try to visit Woubshet Taye every week. (CPJ)

Ethiopian journalist on prison odyssey needs medical care

“When I grow up will I go to jail like my dad?” This was the shattering question that the five-year-old son of imprisoned Ethiopian journalist Woubshet Taye asked his mother after a recent prison visit. Woubshet’s son, named Fiteh (meaning “justice”), has accompanied his mother on a wayward tour of various prisons since his father…

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Families displaced by fighting wait to be registered for food rations at a makeshift camp inside a United Nations facility on the outskirts of Juba on Monday. (Reuters/James Akena)

Reporting on South Sudan crisis difficult, dangerous

“They even started shooting through my house–I had to lie on the floor with my wife and kids,” Angelo Wello, a freelance journalist for faith-based news sites and a pastor, told me. Like many residents of the capital of Juba, South Sudan, Angelo has found it incredibly hard to get accurate information and report on…

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Police attempt to arrest a supporter of Erias Lukwago outside his home on December 2. (Monitor)

Uganda: Block the opposition and block the press

Getting rid of an influential opposition figure is a simple two-step process for Uganda’s ruling party, the National Resistance Movement: Dismiss the opponent and ensure the press cannot cover it.

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A banner tied to the gates of Parliament protests a media bill under review. (CPJ/Tom Rhodes)

Kenya’s press takes to the streets against bill

“Mr. President, you gagged us!” said a banner tied to the gates of Parliament today. Kenya’s Editors Guild and the Kenya Correspondents’ Association organized peaceful demonstrations across the country to protest a media bill currently under parliamentary review. Protests were held in every county in the country, according to William Janak, chairman of the correspondents’…

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Kenyan journalists' protests in 2007 warded off a new media law. (AP)

Just the fear of draconian press laws is enough

Few in Kenya’s media could comprehend how a media bill, considered the most repressive in Kenya’s 50-year history, could sail so easily through Parliament last week. Fittingly, Parliament passed the Kenya Information and Communications Amendment Bill on Halloween. It is awaiting President Uhuru Kenyatta’s signature following a 14- day deliberation period.

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Radio Shabelle was forced out of these offices on Saturday. (NPR)

Shabelle off air and staff evicted, fearing for safety

The young staff members of Radio Shabelle, whose offices were in the relatively safe section of Mogadishu next to the airport, are no longer feeling safe.  On Saturday, while presenters were on the air, heavily armed security forces raided the Shabelle offices and arrested the three-dozen staff members at gunpoint, according to a statement by…

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