Africa

Abuja, January 10, 2020 — Authorities in Sierra Leone should investigate recent attacks against journalists covering local politics, and should ensure that reporters can do their jobs safely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

On September 27, 2019, Tanzania’s broadcasting regulator suspended the privately owned internet-based broadcaster Kwanza Online TV for six months and fined two other online stations, Watetezi TV and Ayo TV, according to statements by Kwanza Online TV and the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition, a network of local nongovernmental organizations, which owns Watetezi TV.

Vancouver, Canada, January 6, 2020 — Authorities in Chad should release journalist Ali Hamata Achène, and stop pursuing criminal defamation and retaliatory cases against reporters, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Nairobi, January 3, 2020—Burundi’s public prosecutor on December 30 asked for a 15-year prison term for four journalists for privately owned online news outlet Iwacu and their driver who are charged with undermining state security, according to Iwacu and other news reports. The prosecutor is also seeking to have the five stripped of their right…

On November 9, 2019, a group of people attacked Jimoh Ogirima, a journalist with the privately owned broadcaster Rave Television, in Nigeria’s southern Edo State, and damaged his camera while he filmed a protest, according to the news website Newspad, the Ghana-based press freedom organization Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), and Ogirima, who spoke…

Vancouver, Canada, December 23, 2019 — Authorities in Benin should immediately release and halt efforts to intimidate journalist Ignace Sossou and drop any charges against him, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Nairobi, December 23, 2019 — Somali authorities should immediately allow local broadcaster City FM to reopen and let its staffers work freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

For the fourth consecutive year, at least 250 journalists are imprisoned globally as authoritarians like Xi Jinping, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Mohammed bin Salman, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi show no signs of letting up on the critical media. A CPJ special report by Elana Beiser

The ongoing detentions of Nigerian publisher Agba Jalingo and Ethiopian editor Fekadu Mahtemework–the only journalists behind bars for their work in their countries, according to CPJ’s latest prison census–don’t tell the whole story of their governments’ crackdowns on freedom of expression.

New York, December 10, 2019—Nigerian authorities should halt all efforts to intimidate journalists working with the U.S.-headquartered, Nigeria-focused Sahara Reporters news website and ensure they are permitted to continue working to report the news, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.