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Kenyan journalists assumed senior politicians from the ruling party and opposition would be singled out for inciting the public to kill after the 2007 presidential elections--but they were shocked to find out that one of their own has been named.
Committee to Protect Journalists
CPJ Blog
Press Freedom News and Views
2010
Pages: 1 2 or All
After
2006, Burundi's government and media relations seemed promising. The airwaves
had been open to private broadcasters for years; the president held frequent
press conferences, and the government commended the unified press for its
professional 2010 pre-election coverage. "The president had organized an open
dialogue with the press before the elections," Information Minister Concilie
Nibigira told CPJ. "It is the only country I know who would hold regular
meetings with the media."
Full, normal broadcasting of the Ugandan Central Broadcasting Service
(CBS)--owned by Uganda's powerful traditional Buganda
kingdom--resumed
Monday after nearly 14 months of silence.
While CBS staff welcomed their return to work, many recounted a tough year and
questioned the nature of the station's re-opening.
Kenyan journalist Francis Nyaruri went missing on January 16, 2009 after writing a series of articles for The Weekly Citizen about corruption and malpractice by local police and civil servants. Thirteen days later, his bound and decapitated body was found near his hometown of Nyamira, northwest of the capital city of Nairobi. Twenty-two months after the murder, the outcome of his bereaved family and friends' quest for justice appears uncertain.
As the October 31 national elections draw near, Tanzania's media is in a frenzy trying to cover the close race between the two leading presidential candidates. But government threats and draconian media laws may be getting in the way of objective coverage.
Though it has been a dark year for Rwanda's press, it has also been a
year of resistance and turning to a new sort of reporting--from exile.
Ever since Rwandan authorities began cracking down on the nation's independent press before the presidential elections in August, the space for critical reporting has been dissipating.
More than a year has passed since the government-influenced
Broadcasting Council summarily closed
the popular Central Broadcasting Service, or CBS. The council closed the
station in September 2009 as riots were erupting in
response to the government's decision to block the traditional Buganda king
from attending a youth celebration north of the capital, Kampala. Its continued closure bodes ill for independent news coverage of February's presidential election.
In August, Shabelle Media Network, one of Somalia's leading independent broadcasters, did something incredibly brave--they rebroadcast news and music that the BBC's Somali-language service beams to the war-torn Horn of African nation in defiance of a ban imposed by hard-line militant Islamist rebel groups Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam. For Somali journalists, who risk death by crossfire and assassination, and censorship from both insurgents and the weak U.S.-backed transitional government, it was a courageous pushback against forces hostile to independent media.
The chorus of voices opposing the South African government's proposed Protection of Information Bill and state-backed ombudsman continue to grow. South Africa's Business Day estimates the press produces three articles per day opposing what many journalists see as an attempt by the ruling party to muzzle investigative reporting. More than 30 editors from major papers published protest messages mid-month calling on the government to abandon the planned legislation. But the South African media has yet to coordinate a mass protest comparable to that successfully orchestrated by Kenyan journalists in 2007 against the country's media bill. And President Jacob Zuma, infamous for issuing defamation suits against a critical South African press, may not back down easily in the face of public criticism.
"No one but you!" supporters of President Paul Kagame have shouted at recent election rallies with many waving the red, white, and blue flags that symbolize the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front party, according to local and international reports. But journalists critical of the ruling party could not document firsthand the campaign that ended today because the government systematically shut their news outlets and swept them out of the country in a campaign of intimidation.
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