2011

Parliamentary hearings on South Africa’s Protection of Information Bill resumed last week with heated debate over provisions threatening to restrict press freedom and access to information. For journalists, much uncertainty remains over the final product and when it will be completed.

A group of international journalists is seeking donations to pay the costs of a kidney transplant for Marrion P’udongo, a Congolese fixer who has worked tirelessly with reporters from around the world to make sure his country’s story is told.

In Zimbabwe, where journalists face constant harassment and repressive legislation, it’s a rare occasion that the army would back off from its interference with an independent newspaper. But that’s what seemed to happen this week in rural Gutu.

In Ivory Coast, the tense post-election dispute between incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo and rival and self-proclaimed president-elect Alassane Ouattara is a power struggle for control of national institutions–including the sole state media outlet, Radiodiffusion Télévision Ivoirienne (RTI).

Augustine Sindyi, a veteran photographer for the state-owned weekly Standard newspaper in Plateau State, was walking home from work on Christmas Eve when a nearby bomb explosion killed him instantly. Sindyi resided in a busy Nigerian neighborhood near the local government offices in the center of Jos. The assailants targeted an area that would receive…