Legal Action

New York, December 22, 2011–Authorities in Tanzania have arrested and charged a columnist and an editor with inciting the police force to subordinate in connection with an editorial critical of the government, according to local journalists and news reports. The printer of the publication has also been summoned to court twice in relation to the…

New York, December 21, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns an Ethiopian court’s decision to convict two Swedish photojournalists today in what appears to be a politicized trial.

December 16 will be the seventh anniversary of the killing of Deyda Hydara, the dean of Gambian journalism. It is also the 20th anniversary of the first issue of The Point, the courageously independent-minded daily that Hydara founded and directed for many years. He was murdered in a drive-by shooting as he drove himself and…

Johannesburg, December 8, 2011–South African authorities should heed widespread calls to drop a “secrecy bill” that opponents say will criminalize whistle-blowing and stifle investigative journalism, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

In late October, a regional court in Jalal-Abad, southern Kyrgyzstan, convicted and sentenced in absentia to hefty prison terms two ethnic Uzbek media owners, Dzhavlon Mirzakhodzhayev of Mezon TV and Khalil Khudaiberdiyev of Osh TV. Both men were tried in connection to the ethnic conflict that ravaged southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010. Authorities accused both…

New York, November 22, 2011–The South African National Assembly today passed an information bill which would sanction unauthorized possession and publication of classified state information with a prison term of up to 25 years, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the upper house of parliament to reject the bill, which has…