The African Union’s special rapporteur on freedom of expression and access to information, Commissioner Pansy Tlakula, has launched an auspicious initiative in East Africa to counter criminal defamation and sedition laws. Since independence, authorities and business interests in the East and Horn region have used criminal laws on sedition, libel, and insult–often relics of former,…
Nairobi, June 17, 2013–Authorities in Burundi have been holding a journalist since Thursday on broad allegations of breaching national security, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the detention of Lucien Rukevya and calls on authorities to disclose its reasons for holding him.
Burundi’s government took unusually swift action last week in response to the police shooting of a radio reporter, after the journalist sought information at a roadblock in the capital Bujumbura where market vendors were allegedly being “taxed” for passage. Perhaps the shooting could have been averted if authorities had bothered to discipline officers involved in…
New York, April 23, 2013–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the passage in the Senate of highly restrictive amendments to Burundi’s Press Law and calls on President Pierre Nkurunziza to reject the bill when it comes to him for confirmation.
Dear President Nkurunziza: We are writing to bring to your attention restrictive amendments to Burundi’s 2003 Press Law that were passed in the National Assembly on April 3. The bill will go before the Senate and if passed, will soon come to you for confirmation. We ask that you use the power of your office to reject this severely restrictive bill, thus reaffirming your government’s commitment to press freedom.
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.
On Tuesday, Burundi’s press corps did what it has done for the past three weeks: protest the imprisonment of one of its own. Hassan Ruvakuki is a reporter jailed since November 28, 2011 on anti-state charges; for the first time, the journalists wore white t-shirts showing Ruvakuki in his green prison uniform. But this time,…
At 8 o’clock Tuesday morning roughly 50 Burundian journalists silently marched around the courthouses in the capital, Bujumbura, and the offices of the justice minister, protesting the imprisonment of their colleague, Hassan Ruvakuki. “They sentenced him to three years without following the law,” said Patrick Nduwimana, one of the protest organizers and the interim director…