Tag Archives: press

Paris, France | AFP | Detained Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, widely known as Shawkan, will be awarded UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Prize, the United Nations’ cultural body said Monday. Shawkan was arrested in August 2013 as he covered deadly clashes in Cairo between security forces and supporters of ousted …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Three Tanzanian NGOs on Tuesday filed a complaint at the East Africa Court of Justice over a 2016 law that they argue violates press freedom. The Media Council of Tanzania (MCT), Legal and Human Rights Centre, and Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition said in their …

Rabat, Morocco | AFP | Hundreds protested on Thursday outside a Moroccan court in support of four journalists being tried for publishing content deemed confidential. The journalists stand accused of publishing in late 2016 excerpts of a parliamentary commission’s debates over huge deficit at the national pension fund. A member …

Manila, Philippines | AFP | Philippine journalists took to the streets Friday in support of a news website facing state-enforced closure, accusing President Rodrigo Duterte of trampling on press freedom. The government withdrew the corporate registration of the Rappler website this week and has summoned its chief executive to answer …

Caracas, Venezuela | AFP | Venezuela saw almost 70 newspapers, TV and radio stations close in 2017 while attacks on journalists rose, the main union representing the media said Wednesday, accusing the socialist government of trying to “silence” the press. The National Union of Press Workers (SNTP) said 46 radio …

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South Africa’s elite police unit said Thursday that it was investigating a journalist at the request of the country’s spy agency after he made corruption and tax avoidance allegations against President Jacob Zuma. In “The President’s Keepers”, released last month, Jacques Pauw paints a vivid …

Nairobi, Kenya | AFP |  The director of a Burundi radio station said Friday his outlet is being temporarily taken off air after criticising the government over the killings of dozens of refugees in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). CCIB FM+, which is run by Burundi’s chamber of commerce, …

Kampala, Uganda| THE INDEPENDENT REPORTER | Cranes goalkeeper Denis Onyango is Uganda’s Sports Personality Of The Year 2016. Onyango was named the country’s best at a glitz and glamour event Friday night by the Uganda Sports Press Association (USPA). The South African based goalkeeper becomes the first individual footballer to be crowned …

Tanzanian newspaper suspended for pointing finger at Mkapa, Kikwete Nairobi, Kenya | AFP |  Tanzanian weekly, Mawio, has been ordered to suspend publication for two years after pointing the finger at two former presidents in connection with huge revenue losses, the country’s interior ministry said Friday. The weekly, regularly critical of …

By Andrew M. Mwenda How the new US president is bursting the Washington bubble and annoying the nation’s hypocrites For many decades, American journalists have deluded themselves into the belief that they are unelected representatives of the people. They are convinced that their profession places them above politics as impartial, …