Special Reports & Publications / Africa

JOURNALISTS IN EXILE A STATISTICAL PROFILE July 2001 – June 2007 Total who went into exile in this period

At least three journalists a month flee their home countries to escape threats of violence, imprisonment, or harassment.

At least three journalists a month flee their home countries to escape threats of violence, imprisonment, or harassment. By Elisabeth Witchel and Karen Phillips

Dangerous Assignments

Dangerous Assignments

Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Jan. 13–When this country opened the way for an independent press at the turn of the decade, the blossoming of newspapers of nearly every political persuasion was widely hailed as a critical stepping stone toward true multiparty democracy. But here, as elsewhere in Africa, rather than marking a clean break with an…

Independent Nigerian journalist Nosa Igiebor has been languishing in prison since his arrest in December 1995. He was jailed for his critical coverage of the country’s military dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha. Though he was placed in solitary confinement, Igiebor was hardly alone. In fact, a record 182 journalists around the world were in jail at…

On Dec. 23, 1995, six agents of Nigeria’s State Security Service (SSS) arrested Nosa Igiebor, the editor in chief of the best-selling weekly magazine Tell, as he prepared to leave his Lagos home for work. Igiebor, a 1993 recipient of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award, had just resurfaced after months in hiding. While he was…

Africa For the third consecutive year, Ethiopia held more journalists in jail–31 at year’s end–than any other country in Africa. Most were detained without charges.