On June 18, 2025, authorities in the Central African Republic arrested Christian Locka, an award-winning Cameroonian investigative journalist, along with Central African reporter Fiacre Salabé, soon after their arrival in the southwestern town of Boda.
Locka told CPJ that several gendarmes, or military police, arrested him in the hotel and searched his room, following an order by the town prosecutor, and detained the two journalists at the gendarmerie station.
Locka heads the Museba Journalism Project, a nonprofit that support regional investigative journalism, and includes The Museba Project, an online outlet that often reports on environmental crimes.
Locka told CPJ that the prosecutor asked him what he was doing in Boda and accused him of reporting without authorization. Locka said he told the prosecutor that he had flown into the country via the capital, Bangui, and was not working as a journalist but accompanying Salabé, who was reporting on logging.
The two journalists told CPJ that the prosecutor said a Bangui-based magistrate had filed a complaint that he had been defrauded by a Cameroonian called Eric and his Central African accomplice when buying a vehicle. The journalists said they reviewed the complaint, denied involvement in the crime, and asked to meet the plaintiff, but their request was rejected.
Locka and Salabé told CPJ they were released on June 25, without charge.
As of September, CPJ's calls to the justice ministry went unanswered.