Africa

New York, July 6, 2011--Gambian President Yahya Jammeh must clarify his March 16 comments suggesting that detained journalist "Chief" Ebrima Manneh has died, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. CPJ's call comes ahead of the fifth anniversary of the July 7, 2006, arrest of Manneh, left, who disappeared after being taken into government custody.

New York, July 5, 2011--Two Swedish journalists reporting on the activities of armed separatists operating in an oil-rich province of eastern Ethiopia have been detained without charge since Thursday in the Horn of Africa nation, according to news reports and government officials.

Ethiopian security forces arrested photojournalist Johan Persson and reporter Martin Schibbye, contributors to the Sweden-based agency Kontinent, along the border with neighboring Somalia, government spokesman Bereket Simon told CPJ.

New York, July 5, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a prison sentence given to a reporter of an online news Web site on Saturday in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland. 

New York, July 1, 2011--Detectives today charged private weekly Standard Editor Nevanji Madanhire, reporter Patience Nyangove, and Human Resource Manager Loud Ramakgapola with criminal defamation. The three were arrested at the newspaper's offices in Harare Wednesday morning and later released, local journalists told CPJ.

When they're creating new features, software designers talk in terms of "use cases." A use case describes steps that future customers might perform with a website. "Starting a group with friends," would be a use case for Facebook. "Buying a book" would be case for Amazon's designers. 

New York, June 30, 2011--Police arrested Faysal Mohamed, at left, a reporter for the Hiiraan Online website Wednesday morning in the port town of Bossasso in the semi-autonomous republic of Puntland, local journalists told CPJ. No official charges have been brought against him, although the deputy commander of the Bossasso District Police told journalists that Mohamed was arrested for publishing a "false news report" on Hiiraan Online. He is currently being held in the Bossasso Central Police Station. 

New York, June 29, 2011--The Ethiopian government today publicly today accused an editor and a columnist of involvement in a terrorism plot, according to news reports and local journalists. Woubshet Taye, deputy editor of the leading Awramba Times newspaper and Reeyot Alemu, columnist for the weekly Feteh, have been held incommunicado under Ethiopia's far-reaching anti-terrorism law since last week. 

New York, June 23, 2011--Ethiopian authorities have been holding a newspaper columnist incommunicado since Tuesday, local journalists told the Committee to Protect Journalists. Reeyot Alemu, a regular contributor to the independent weekly Feteh, was expected to spend the next four weeks in preventive detention under what appears to be Ethiopia's sweeping anti-terrorism law.  

Senegalese journalists say justice is not on their side when they are victims of abuse by powerful officials or security forces. I met recently in Dakar with journalists targeted with criminal acts in apparent reprisal for their work. In these two high-profile cases, CPJ has found evidence of political influence on the judiciary.

How can an Ethiopian reporter cover the activities of Ethiopia's leading opposition figure, Berhanu Nega, or an attack by the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebels without risking prosecution and a 20-year prison sentence? Such questions have haunted Ethiopian journalists since a far-reaching anti-terrorism law came into effect in 2009. The law criminalizes any reporting authorities deem to "encourage" or "provide moral support" to groups and causes the government labels as "terrorists."