Africa
2019
Nigeria and Ethiopia jail activist-journalists amid crackdown on free expression
The ongoing detentions of Nigerian publisher Agba Jalingo and Ethiopian editor Fekadu Mahtemework–the only journalists behind bars for their work in their countries, according to CPJ’s latest prison census–don’t tell the whole story of their governments’ crackdowns on freedom of expression.
African Union must act on Cameroon’s human rights violations
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 64 other civil society organizations in calling on the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) to address serious and systematic human rights violations in Cameroon, including the jailing of journalists.
Nigerian military targeted journalists’ phones, computers with “forensic search” for sources
Hamza Idris, an editor with the Nigerian Daily Trust, was at the newspaper’s central office on January 6 when the military arrived looking for him. Soldiers with AK47s walked between the newsroom desks repeating his name, he told CPJ. It was the second raid on the paper that day; the first hit the bureau based…
CPJ joins letter to Pope Francis urging focus on human rights during Mozambique visit
The Committee to Protect Journalists and 14 other human rights and freedom of expression organizations sent an open letter to Pope Francis yesterday, on the eve of his three-day visit to Mozambique, urging the pontiff to publicly support the protection and promotion of human rights as the country prepares for its general elections on October…
Deyda Hydara’s daughter: ‘I am still crying’ for murdered Gambian journalist
At Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) on July 22, army officer Lieutenant Malick Jatta named former President Yahya Jammeh as the mastermind behind the murder of prominent editor Deyda Hydara on December 16 , 2004. He said Jammeh had given the direct order to assassinate Hydara, an outspoken critic who was the managing…
CPJ joins call for U.N. Human Rights Council to extend mandate of Burundi Commission of Inquiry
The Committee to Protect Journalists today joined 40 other civil society organizations in calling on member and observer states of the U.N. Human Rights Council to extend for a year the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry on Burundi.
In era of reform, Ethiopia still reverts to old tactics to censor press
On June 22, Ethiopia was plunged into an internet blackout following what the government described as a failed attempted coup in the Amhara region. In the aftermath at least two journalists were detained under the country’s repressive anti-terror law, part of an uptick in arrests that CPJ has noted in the country since May.
Discredited, threatened, attacked: challenges of covering South Africa’s election in the digital age
In the lead up to South Africa’s elections in May, the Electoral Commission of South Africa accredited CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal as an international observer, monitoring press freedom. Quintal found that unlike 1994–when she covered the violence of the country’s first democratic elections–journalists in 2019 cited online harassment and threats as the biggest…
CPJ joins call for UN to continue scrutinizing human rights situation in Eritrea
The Committee to Protect Journalists and 29 other civil society organizations today sent a letter to members of the United Nations Human Rights Council urging them to continue to scrutinize the human rights situation in Eritrea. The letter was sent ahead of the 41st session of the Human Rights Council, which will take place in…