Africa

Nairobi, October 21, 2025—Almost three years after Ethiopia’s civil war ended, Tigray remains tense and dangerous for journalists, who have been shot at, detained, raided, and swept up in a local power struggle that could trigger renewed conflict. Ethiopian foreign minister Gedion Timothewos warned the United Nations this month that in the northern state of…

Lusaka, August 14, 2025—When a South African solar panel company last month dropped its legal battle over a gag order preventing journalist Bongani Hans from reporting on allegations of misleading clients, Hans told the Committee to Protect Journalists that he saw it as “a victory for media and press freedom.” But for Hans and others…

In spite of the Senegalese gendarmerie officer holding a gun held to his head, Ibou Sané held firm. He refused the officer’s order to admit that he knew René Capain Bassène – but in the end it didn’t matter. Testimony he insisted he never gave was used in court to help convict Bassène, a well-known…

Haitian journalist Jean Marc Jean was covering an anti-government protest in Port-au-Prince in February 2024 when he was struck in the face by a gas canister fired by police into the crowd. One of at least five journalists injured while covering civil unrest in the country that month, Jean arrived at the hospital with a…

The Committee to Protect Journalists and two Angola-based media rights organizations have made a joint submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council, calling on authorities in the southern African nation to improve its record on ensuring journalists’ safety and press freedom. The submission, dated July 16, 2024, was made ahead of Angola’s January 2025…

“He hit me with a gun butt,” Premium Times newspaper reporter Yakubu Mohammed told the Committee to Protect Journalists, recalling how he was struck by a police officer while reporting on cost-of-living protests in Nigeria’s capital of Abuja on August 1. Two other officers beat him, seized his phone, and threw him in a police…

The arrest and detention of Segun Olatunji, the then-editor of the privately owned First News site, by Nigeria’s military in March triggered on outcry from local and international civil society, highlighting an uptick in the unlawful detention of journalists in the West African nation.  Olatunji was taken from his Alagbado home in southwestern Lagos state by more…

When exiled Russian news website Meduza was hit with a flood of internet traffic in mid-April, it set off alarm bells among the staff as the deluge blocked publishing for more than four hours and briefly rendered the site inaccessible for some readers. It was the largest distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) attack in…

When Belete Kassa’s friend and news show co-host Belaye Manaye was arrested in November 2023 and taken to the remote Awash Arba military camp known as the “Guantanamo of the desert,” Belete feared that he might be next. The two men co-founded the YouTube-based channel Ethio News in 2020, which had reported extensively on a conflict that…

Senegalese reporter Ndèye Maty Niang, also known as Maty Sarr Niang, would have likely jumped at the chance to report on the political crisis gripping her country since the president postponed elections in early February. But Niang can’t cover the news – she’s in a women’s prison awaiting trial. She’s not alone: Niang is one…