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Central African Republic

2007



 UPDATE 

May 15, 2007

Original alert:  March 13, 2007

Michel Alkhaly Ngady, Les Temps Nouveaux

New York, May 8, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists extends its condolences to the colleagues and family of respected Associated Press reporter Anthony Mitchell, who was killed in a weekend plane crash in Cameroon.

Mitchell, 39, a staff reporter with the AP’s Kenya bureau, was among 114 passengers killed when a Kenya Airways aircraft crashed early Saturday shortly after takeoff from the coastal city of Douala, Cameroon, according to news reports. He was returning to Nairobi after completing a weeklong assignment in the Central African Republic on international animal smuggling, AP reported.
New York, April 2, 2007— A criminal court in the Central African Republic’s capital, Bangui, today sentenced to prison the president of a private press group, who has been jailed since March 12 in connection with statements critical of the governmental High Communication Council (HCC), according to news reports.

Michel Alkhaly Ngady—who heads a group of private press editors known by the French acronym GEPPIC—was sentenced to two months in prison and fined 300,000 CFA francs (US$636) on charges of “resistance and disobedience to public authorities and contempt for the laws,” according to the same sources. He was returned to prison, pending an appeal. Today, private newspapers staged a “press-free day” to protest the imprisonment of Ngady, who is also director of the private weekly Les Temps Nouveaux, according to news reports.
New York, March 13, 2007—The leader of a local group of private press editors was jailed on Monday in the capital Bangui over statements critical of the governmental High Communication Council (HCC).

Editor Michel Alkhaly Ngady of the private weekly Les Temps Nouveaux and the president of GEPPIC, a local organization of publishers, was summoned and jailed in a police station near Bangui’s harbor, according to local journalists and news reports. In a telephone interview, Ngady was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying that the summons was linked to a complaint by HCC President Pierre Sammy-Mackfoy accusing GEPPIC of “sabotaging the actions of the HCC.” He remained in police custody, according to local journalists.

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Sue Valentine

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