Silence reigned supreme in Eritrea, where the entire independent press was under a government ban and 11 journalists languished in jail at year’s end. Clamorous, deadly power struggles raged in Zimbabwe over land and access to information, and in Burundi over ethnicity and control of state resources. South Africa, Senegal, and Benin remained relatively liberal…
Following widespread allegations of human rights abuses in Togo, President Gnassingbé Eyadema and the ruling Rassemblement du Peuple Togolais (RPT) struggled all year to prove their commitment to democracy, promising parliamentary elections that were ultimately postponed until 2002 for “technical reasons.” Desperate to improve its international image while retaining a tight grip on power, RPT…
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is disturbed by the recent government seizure of the entire print run of the private Lomé-based weekly Le Combat du Peuple and the sentencing of Lucien Messan, the paper’s editor-in-chief, to 18 months in prison. On July 2, according to international news sources, 30 armed police officers stormed the printing press of Le Combat du Peuple, seizing printing plates and all copies of the paper’s latest edition.
SOLDIERS UNDER THE COMMAND OF ROBERT GUEI, the retired general who seized power from an elected government on Christmas Eve, 1999, terrorized Côte d’Ivoire during their 10 months in power. As part of a general pattern of human rights abuses, they raided newsrooms at will, seized reporters’ equipment, banned news organizations, and forced journalists to…
WIELDING A HARSH NEW PRESS CODE, THE TOGOLESE GOVERNMENT stepped up its harassment of the media last year. At the same time, local and international monitors sharpened their focus on human rights violations in the country. The new Press Code, which replaced a widely praised and far more reasonable 1998 law, was passed on January…
Your Excellency: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is disturbed by the continued detention of Hippolyte Agboh, publisher of the private weekly L’Exilé, who is being prosecuted on criminal defamation charges. We are equally concerned about the recent spate of reprisals against news organizations that have criticized your government.
“Press freedom will be total,” promised Gen. Robert Gueï, Côte d’Ivoire’s new head of state. General Gueï, 58, who overthrew the government of President Henri Konan Bedie on Christmas Eve, made this announcement just hours after his nine-man junta imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in this west African country, historically noted for its political stability. However,…
On July 23, President Gnassingbé Eyadéma, who seized power in 1967, announced that he would not run for reelection. Meanwhile, widely publicized charges that the ruling party rigged the most recent election have heightened official sensitivity to media criticism. In late April, the government warned independent journalists to refrain from printing false or slanderous articles…