On Thursday, the U.S.-based National Association of Black Journalists announced the winner of its 2009 Percy Qoboza Foreign Journalists Award: Zimbabwean journalist Anderson Shadreck Manyere. Half a world away, however, Manyere, left, lingered in a hospital in the capital, Harare, traumatized by nearly four months of imprisonment, according to his lawyer.
Filmmaker Robyn Kriel, 25, from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, spoke to PBS’ Wide Angle last week about the risks she took reporting from Zimbabwe in the lead-up to the country’s 2008 presidential election. Last April, CPJ closely followed the case of Kriel’s mother, Margaret Kriel, who was imprisoned for four days on accusations of “practicing journalism without accreditation.” You…
Freelance journalist Frank Chikowore visited CPJ this week after receiving the Tully Center Free Speech Award at Syracuse University. Chikowore received the award for his brave, ongoing reporting on the crisis in Zimbabwe. He has worked for two newspapers in Zimbabwe, including The Nation and the Weekly Times, which was closed down in 2005.
The Hong Kong police announced on Monday they would investigate the alleged assault on photographer Richard Jones by Zimbabwe’s first lady, Grace Mugabe, while she was on vacation. On January 15, Jones claimed Mugabe ordered her bodyguard to hold the photographer down while she punched him repeatedly in the face near Hong Kong’s exclusive Shangri-la…
Zimbabwe’s media has suffered much from repression, exile, and worse, and on December 18 it lost one of its most beloved and compassionate voices. Caroline Gombakomba, a reporter and radio host since 2003 for the Voice of America’s Studio 7 broadcasts to the Southern African country, died in Silver Spring, Maryland. Gombakomba, 40, had been fighting breast cancer…
A new turn in the Anna Politkovskaya murder trial is making news today across the wires. It was initially going to be held behind closed doors, but had been opened to the public on Monday. However, stories from AP, Reuters, AFP, and RFE/RL all report that the court has repealed that ruling and will now close the trial to outside observers. Reports claim…
We announced the 2008 International Press Freedom Award recipients on Tuesday, and the news has been well-received worldwide. Bilal Hussein of Iraq, Danish Karokhel and Farida Nekzad of Afghanistan, Andrew Mwenda of Uganda, and Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez of Cuba will all be honored by CPJ on November 25 for their courageous work. Beatrice Mtetewa, of Zimbabwe will…