Africa

Mali's press has endured one attack too many.

Since the coup d'état of March 22, 2012, CPJ has documented a staggering 62 anti-press violations across Mali. Journalists and media houses have become ready targets of attacks, threats, intimidation, assassination attempts, arbitrary arrests, detentions, and censorship by separatist and Islamist militant groups and government security forces alike. 

Nairobi, March 12, 2013--Somali police attacked and obstructed more than a half-dozen journalists who were seeking to cover a rape trial in Mogadishu on Saturday, as authorities continue to struggle in meeting law enforcement and free expression demands in sexual assault cases. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the attacks and calls on authorities to hold the officers accountable.

Lagos, Nigeria, March 11, 2013--Authorities in Mali must investigate an attack on a critical radio journalist that came two weeks after he received threats warning him to resign from the station, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Amid a tense presidential election, Kenyans have avoided a repeat of the deadly violence that followed the vote in 2007, when half a million people were uprooted and more than 1,000 people were killed. Still, the situation today is fraught. Ethnic identity dominates the nation's political divisions--and those same loyalties can undermine solidarity in the press corps.

Today marks International Women's Day. Hashtags like #IWD and #InternationalWomensDay have been trending on Twitter. Among the twitterati who voiced their support for women's rights was Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He tweeted: 

PM: Let me reiterate in this House the commitment of our govt. to ensuring the dignity, safety and security of every woman of this country.

-- Dr Manmohan Singh (@PMOIndia) March 6, 2013

Nairobi, March 7, 2013--Authorities in Tanzania must immediately investigate a vicious attack on a veteran journalist in Dar es Salaam, the capital, on Tuesday night, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

New York, March 6, 2013--State security agents in Mali detained an editor today in connection with his newspaper's publication of an open letter criticizing a financial package awarded to a former coup leader, according to news reports and local journalists.

Six agents of State Security, Mali's intelligence agency, arrested Boukary Daou, a top editor for the daily Le Républicain, in the capital, Bamako, according to Assane Koné, the paper's editor-in-chief. Koné told CPJ that several journalists went to the agency's headquarters to inquire about Daou, but officials denied having him in custody. Local journalists and news reports, which cited an unnamed Malian security official, later confirmed the journalist's detention.

Nairobi, March 6, 2013--Burundian authorities today released Hassan Ruvakuki, a reporter who has been imprisoned for 16 months on charges related to his interview with a rebel leader. The circumstances of the release were not immediately clear, and the Committee to Protect Journalists called on authorities to vacate Ruvakuki's conviction and prison sentence.

Journalists could be seen rushing from polling station to polling station Monday to see long queues of determined Kenyan voters in what was apparently a largely peaceful election, according to the Deputy Director of Kenya's statutory media council, Victor Bwire. But leading up to the vote, many journalists worked in a climate of fear; and many of them say they are still wary that, once results are in, they will face attacks and other challenges such as they experienced in the aftermath of the last presidential election in 2007.

Nairobi, March 4, 2013--Sunday's decision by an appellate court in Mogadishu to uphold the conviction of a freelance Somali journalist in connection with his interview of a reported rape victim prolongs a miscarriage of justice and is a direct assault on press freedom, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.