Authorities in Cameroon should immediately release journalists Théodore Tchopa and David Eyengue Nzima, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The two journalists, from privately owned daily newspaper Le Jour, were arrested yesterday while covering an opposition gathering in Douala, Denis Nkwebo, their deputy editor in chief and the president of the Cameroonian journalists' trade union, told CPJ. Their arrest was also reported by local outlets and journalists on social media.  The journalists were detained at a house where opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who claims to have won the 2018 presidential election, and opposition activists were also arrested,…Read more

This statement was originally published on mfwa.org on 9 January 2019. The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) condemns the shooting of three journalists in Nigeria at a political party rally in Ikeja, Lagos, and calls for thorough investigations and justice for the victims. The three, Emmanuel Oladesu, group political editor of The Nation newspaper, Temitope Ogunbanke, a correspondent of News Telegraph and Abiodun Yusuf, a cameraman of Ibile Television, were shot while covering a rally organised to market Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for the governorship of Lagos State,…Read more

The International Press Centre (IPC), Lagos-Nigeria, condemns in strong terms, the forceful closure of Daily Trust Newspapers' head office in Abuja and the organisation's Maiduguri office by military personnel on Sunday January 6, 2019. A senior editorial staff of the organisation confirmed the military onslaught on the media establishment stating that staff had been ordered out of the premises, laptops and computers seized and operations halted. No reason, he said, was given for the action. IPC considers this development as a fresh threat to freedom of the press as well as the freedom…Read more

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appalled by the physical attacks against journalists and violations of the free flow of information in the final week of the campaign for Bangladesh's parliamentary elections on Sunday (30 December). An alarming total of 12 journalists were injured when around30 masked individuals attacked the staff of two media outlets - the newspaper Jugantorand Jamuna TV - at around 10:30 p.m. on 24 December in their hotel in the Dhaka suburb of Nawabganj where they were staying while covering the last days of the campaign. Armed with steel rods…Read more

One year after freelance journalist Azory Gwanda disappeared in Tanzania, the Committee to Protect Journalists reiterated its call for a credible investigation and public accounting of his fate. Gwanda, who wrote for the privately owned Mwananchi and The Citizen newspapers, went missing on November 21, 2017. His wife, Anna Pinoni, reported seeing Gwanda leave their farm in Tanzania's Coast region with unidentified men in a white Land Cruiser, according to CPJ research. Gwanda told his wife he was taking an emergency trip, and would return the next day. He has not been seen…Read more