2012

Soumaïla Abdoulaye Maïga, a presenter with community station Radio Soni in the northeastern town of Ansongo, went into hiding on April 13, 2012, after being warned of an imminent attack by separatist fighters of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), according to local journalists. After Maïga fled, the fighters raided his house…

Members of Ansar Dine, a Salafist militant group affiliated with Al-Qaeda, shut down two local radio stations on March 27, 2012, as they seized the northeast town of Kidal from the Malian army, according to local journalists.

Militants belonging to the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), a Salafist group affiliated with Al-Qaeda, seized control of community station Radio Soni in the northeastern town of Ansongo on August 29, 2012, according to local journalists.

Two officials of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), a Salafist militant group affiliated with Al-Qaeda, raided the studios of Radio Annya in the northeastern town of Gao on August 20, 2012, according to the BBC.

Rebel fighters of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a separatist movement of ethnic Tuaregs in northern Mali, stormed the offices of private Radio Adar Khoïma in the northeastern town of Gao on April 3, 2012, according to local journalists and news reports. The rebels kidnapped a journalist and assaulted him, and…

Police in Conakry, the capital, briefly detained two journalists on August 31, 2012, while they were interviewing protesters demonstrating against a massacre of villagers by security forces on August 3, 2012.

Gambian authorities detained Thomas Fessy, the West Africa correspondent of BBC World News, for several hours at the capital’s international airport on September 5, 2012, and ordered him to leave the country within 48 hours, the BBC reported. Fessy returned to Senegal on September 7, 2012.

Nigerian soldiers beat Leadership Newspapers reporter David-Chyddy Eleke, confiscated his camera, and arrested him for taking pictures of the demolition of buildings in Awka, in Anambra State in Nigeria’s southeast region on September 6, 2012, according to local journalists and news reports. 

On September 5, 2012, the studios of TV+, a private television station in the capital, Libreville, owned by André Mba Obame, the country’s main opposition leader, were attacked by six unknown assailants, Agence France-Presse quoted Editor-in-Chief Ismaël Obiang Nze as saying. In the attack around 3 a.m. local time, a security guard was hit on the…

The Colombian Supreme Court announced on August 27, 2012, that it would drop a defamation complaint against prominent journalist Cecilia Orozco Tascón, according to news reports. Five days earlier, the court released a statement saying it would file charges against Orozco, who writes a widely read column in the Bogotá daily El Espectador. The court…