In our last Weekly Media Review (No.27/2010), MMPZ incorrectly stated that the Mahendere Brothers produced the Nyatsoterera album and that they participated in former information minister Jonathan Moyo’s 2002 Pax Afro project. [more]

Authorities arrested a journalist on Tuesday on criminal defamation charges in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Hours earlier, in an unrelated incident, armed men briefly forced the city’s three main opposition broadcasters off the air, according to local journalists and news reports.[more]

The authorities in Niger have suspended a June 3, 2010 Decree which the country’s media and civil society groups say would restrict information flow and gag foreign journalists.[more]

An Ivorian judge on Monday ordered the release of three journalists who had been jailed for a story citing a leaked official document, but he imposed a fine and suspension on their newspaper, according to local journalists and news reports. [more]

New York, July 23, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Ghana’s attorney general to drop prosecution of prominent journalist Ato Kwamena Dadzie under the 1960 criminal code in an attempt to get him to reveal his sources.

This is a tiny snatch from the draft of a chapter I have written for a book on religion and journalism. (Declaration of interest: I am an atheist). I once presented a BBC documentary on the subject and last year spoke at a conference on religion and news. I have remained fascinated by it ever since. I welcome any comments, references, links or suggestions on the topic.[more]

Amnesty International has called on Somali authorities and armed opposition groups in the country to respect freedom of expression amid a growing government crackdown on independent journalism. A campaign of harassment and intimidation has seen a spate of arrests and interrogations of journalists since June. Media workers already face serious threats from armed groups, with 10 reporters killed in the last 18 months. [more]

A new daily publication, The New Age was launched on 22 June 2010 in Johannesburg. Former minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad said, the paper will be critical but constructive, it will gather reports and news from the nine (9) provinces of the country which most newspapers don’t do. Adding that the newspaper will cover the good stories coming out of provinces that had been painted by the media as having no stability and lack of service delivery.[more]

Journalists and media organisations have denounced the move by the Securities Commission of Zimbabwe (SEC) to register financial journalists as securities investor advisers in terms of the Securities Act of 2004.[more]

Lawmakers were warned again on 22 July 2010 that the Protection of Information Bill would not survive Constitutional Court scrutiny because it rides roughshod over media freedom and the democratic values of transparency and accountability.[more]

On 21 July 2010 Swazi traditional authorities threatened Swazi journalists with death if they continued to write stories considered by the authorities as undermining the country’s leadership and system of government.[more]

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has suspended its plans to issue four radio frequency licences, after companies objected to its auction process. The spectrum can be used to build wireless broadband networks that cover large areas and transmit high volumes of traffic cheaply. This will also increase competition in the market.[more]

I will continue to relive for a long time August 5, 1960, the day Upper Volta, as Burkina Faso was then known, proclaimed independence from France! As a presenter of the newly founded national radio network, I was on the air, which was open to listeners all night.[more]

Madagascar recently celebrated its 50th Independence Day, a milestone for a Malagasy press that has been documenting through difficult periods the nation’s tumultuous journey of self-rule. The funny thing is that most of our written press is in French, as in most former French colonies, and we never really question why that is or find issue with it.[more]

As parliamentary hearings on the Protection of Information Bill begin in South Africa today, the International Press Institute expressed its concern over many of the provisions contained in the draft legislation, arguing that they should explicitly take into account journalists acting in the public interest. [more]

From today, you now have an alternative web address to visit the CPJ website. As well as our usual cpj.org address, you can visit our site securely at https://cpj.org/. We’ve turned on this feature to help protect our readers who are at risk of surveillance and censorship, and as part of a wider advocacy mission to encourage social networking and media sites to do the same.[more]

The return of ZANU PF propaganda songs on all stations of the national public broadcaster, ZBC, graphically illustrates the extent to which the country’s sole broadcasting station remains ZANU PF’s propaganda tool despite it losing the 2008 elections.[more]

In the year marking the 50th anniversary of Togo’s independence, the Togolese press is suffering from an obvious malaise—a malaise perceived by the informed citizen and not by communications professionals themselves. This malaise transpires in the daily practice of journalism through the lack of professionalism.[more]

Colleagues of a radio journalist who was attacked by unknown assailants on July 16, 2010 are suspecting the military of being behind the attack. “Mansaré must have been a victim of an action carried out by persons hostile to his reports possibly, it is a settlement of scores,” according to a colleague of Mansare who spoke to the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent in Guinea on condition of anonymity. [more]

VIENNA, 21 July 2010 (PlusNews) - It's a story of sexy young guys and girls having a good time in the big city, of friendships pushed to the edge, and families struggling to survive, but underneath all the drama, MTV's "Shuga" is a story about HIV.

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Three editors of privately-owned daily, Le Noveau Courier newspaper detained by the Ivorian authorities for refusing to reveal their sources of information over a July 13 publication will appear before the Plateau Magistrate court in Abidjan, the capital on July 21. The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) correspondent in Cote d’Ivoire reported that the journalists could go to prison for a year , if the court grants a request by Oulaï Fernand, the prosecutor in the case. [more]

New York, July 19, 2010—Burundian authorities’ arrest on Saturday of journalist Jean-Claude Kavumbagu on treason charges over commentary critical of the country’s security forces is alarming, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. He is being held in Mpimba prison in the capital, Bujumbura.[more]

Ato Kwamena Dadzie, news editor of Joy FM, an Accra-based independent radio station, was on July 15, 2010 charged with a criminal offence for refusing to reveal the station’s sources of information on a July 5 news item. The station had carried report to the effect that an umbrella body of local contractors, Ghana Real Estates Developers Association (GREDA), had been issued death threats to withdraw a petition that it had sent to Ghana’s parliament to oppose a controversial housing deal that the government of Ghana had entered into with a Korean company . [more]

Last week CNN fired one of its senior editors, Octavia Nasr, after she paid her respects in a tweet following the death of a controversial Lebanese Shia cleric.

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New York, July 16, 2010—Three journalists were formally charged today after refusing to reveal to Ivory Coast’s state prosecutor their sources for a corruption story based on a document leaked from the prosecutor’s office. The journalists could face up to 10 years in prison.[more]

The government is in the process of passing a law that will limit access to government information undermining transparency, accountability, and media freedom in South African. The Protection of Information Bill allows every organ of state - from government departments and parastatals to the smallest municipality - to throw a blanket of secrecy over its documents.[more]

PRESIDENT Mugabe’s omission of a proposed Freedom of Information Bill from the legislative agenda of the Third Session of the Seventh Parliament of Zimbabwe confirmed fears among Zimbabweans that government is not committed to the genuine reform of Zimbabwe’s offensive media and information laws.

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Two human rights activists – Gamal Eid of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) and Ahmed Seif El Islam Hamad of the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre (HMLC) – and a blogger, Amr Gharbeia, are to be tried before a criminal court in the Cairo district of Khalifeh on 17 July on charges of insult, defamation, blackmail and “abuse of the Internet service.”[more]

New York, July 15, 2010—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the arrest of three journalists in Ivory Coast who have been detained since Tuesday, when they refused to disclose sources for an investigative report detailing the results of a government probe into corruption in the coffee and cocoa export trade, according to local journalists and news reports.[more]

MOGADISHU (Sh. M. Network) – TFG’s information minister Abdirahman Omar (Yarisow) has held press conference in the Somalia capital Mogadishu and talked more with heads of Somali media on Wednesday.[more]

On 9 July 2010, The Lusaka High Court dismissed an application by The Post Newspapers editor-in-chief Fred M’membe in which he sought President Banda to appear in court for cross examination.[more]

Guinea's military leader, Gen. Sékouba Konaté, has enshrined press freedom in the country's new constitution. He has reformed media laws to protect journalists from jail sentences and ensure the freedom to create independent newspapers, report Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and ARTICLE 19.[more]

REPORTS alleging that two senior government ministers, ZANU PF’s Didymus Mutasa and the MDC-T’s Co-Minister of Home Affairs, Theresa Makone, had intimidated the police in an effort to obtain the release of Mutasa’s son, Martin Mutasa, from custody, provided some spice in a week that was again dominated by the Constitutional Parliamentary Committee’s chaotic management of its constitutional outreach consultation program.[more]

The recent unanimous decision by Parliament to allow the Member of Parliament for Gaborone Central, Hon. Dumelang Saleshando to come up with a Freedom of Information Bill is much welcome and genuinely applauded. MISA-Botswana has been in the fore front calling for the enactment of a law that will guarantee access to information in this country. [more]

President Mugabe has announced that the Media Practitioners’ Bill, which has been on the cards for more than a year following recommendations of the All Media Stakeholders Conference held in Kariba in May 2009, will be among the 23 Bills constituting the legislative agenda of the next parliamentary session. [more]

If you’re in downtown Nairobi before the 4th of August, be sure to pop in to the Barber Q Hair Studio and get yourself a free head massage. The studio is on the 2nd Floor of El-Roi Plaza, close to the Odeon Cinema. This is just one example of the thousands of snippets of information that are at the heart of Mocality, a free-to-list, hyper-local mobile business directory in Nairobi, Kenya.[more]

Reporters Without Borders wrote on 13 July to Sudanese president, Omar al Bashir, urging him to immediately lift prior censorship of the written press. Here is the text of the letter:[more]

Reporters Without Borders calls on the European Union and other international donors to suspend their assistance to the Rwandan government and to stop providing financial support for the 9 August presidential election following a series of grave press freedom violations, the latest of which was a newspaper editor’s arrest last week.[more]

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today condemned the kidnapping of four officials of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), following an armed attack on two NUJ vehicles yesterday.[more]

The National Press Council (CNP), the print media regulatory body in Côte d’Ivoire, on July 9, 2010 imposed a fine of three million CFA francs (aboutUS$6,000) on Regie Cyclone Company, publishers of Le Temps, a pro-government daily newspaper. [more]

With this submission, ARTICLE 19 seeks to make a constructive contribution to the preparation process of the UPR for Rwanda. [more]

The Banks’ new Access to Information policy, which became effective on July 1, is ground breaking in several respects. First, it represents a paradigm shift to a ‘presumption of disclosure’ in which the great majority of Bank documents will be accessible to the public and introduces an appeal mechanism for those that aren’t.[more]

On 13 July 2010, Special Assistant to the President for Press and Public Relations Dickson Jere advised the media in Zambia to be extra cautious with stories they source from what he has termed as disgruntled politicians.[more]

On 11 July 2010, Channel Swazi, a privately-owned TV station was forced to pull a religious programme off air after Swazi authorities felt the sermon which was being preached in the programme was critical of royalty and Swazi cultural practices[more]

On 13 July 2010, the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) Lusaka Province Youth Chairperson Chris Chalwe was found with a case to answer by Lusaka Resident Magistrate David Simusamba following his assault of two Zambian journalists in 2009.[more]

One of the joys of the LSE and the Polis Summer School in particular, is seeing different political philosophies collide. Katy Kinney from Iowa is active in one of the heartlands of American democracy, a state famous for its special role in the US elections.[more]

Police in Rwanda arrested the editor of a private newspaper on Thursday in connection with a series of articles critical of the government, according to local journalists. Agnès Uwimana was taken into custody in the capital, Kigali, over allegations that her Kinyarwanda-language weekly Umurabyo had published stories “inciting the public to disobey,” “articles related to division and ethnicity,” and “rumors that can cause disturbance in the country,” Rwandan National Police spokesman Eric Kayiranga told CPJ today. [more]

Following independence, single-party rule in francophone Africa often sought to restrict the press to the role of government messenger.[more]

On 8 July 2010, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) condemned a 7 July decision by the Sudanese security authorities to close the "Alentebaha" newspaper for an indefinite period of time. The newspaper had urged Sudanese citizens to vote in the upcoming referendum on the independence of southern Sudan and the separation between the north and south. [more]

Najib Sagna, a reporter of the Walf Grand Place, a privately-owned Dakar-based daily newspaper was in the morning of July 6, 2010 reportedly attacked by four assailants including a relative of Madam Coumba Gaye, a deputy minister of Justice and Human Rights.[more]

In a letter sent to Zambian President Rupiah Banda on Thursday, 23 IPI World Press Freedom Heroes urged the Zambian authorities to reverse, on appeal, Mr M’membe’s 4 June conviction on contempt of court charges – which led to a four-month prison sentence with hard labour.[more]

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu of South Africa has endorsed the Declaration of Table Mountain, a media industry call to African heads of state to repeal insult and criminal defamation laws and place a free press higher on the political agenda.[more]

Reports alleging that two senior government ministers, ZANU PF’s Didymus Mutasa and the MDC-T’s Co -Minister of Home Affairs, Theresa Makone, had intimidated the police in an effort to obtain the release of Mutasa’s son, Martin Mutasa, from custody, provided some spice in a week that was again dominated by the Constitutional Parliamentary Committee’s chaotic management of its constitutional outreach consultation programme. The surprise was that this shocking news appeared as the front-page lead story in The Herald where ministers are rarely – if ever – accused of such allegations.[more]

On 7 July 2010 Information Minister Ronnie Shikapwasha demanded for an apology from The Post Newspaper and Patriotic Front (PF) leader Michael Sata for allegedly perpetrating lies against President Rupiah Banda and his government.[more]

The International Press Institute today named Gambian publisher and editor Pap Saine an IPI World Press Freedom Hero in honour of his courageous work for press freedom in the face of attacks and harassment. Pap Saine is the publisher and editor of The Point, and the dean of Reuters’ correspondents in West and Central Africa. [more]

Critical voices in the East African media—whether in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, or Uganda—have been intimidated, banned, blocked, and beaten prior to elections in recent years. Somalia is so embroiled in conflict that even the concept of having elections remains a faraway dream. But in late June, the semi-autonomous region of Somaliland in northern Somalia managed to hold relatively peaceful and free elections with decent media coverage, local journalists and election observers told CPJ.[more]

Today, July 8, 2010, the ECOWAS Community Court will continue with the hearing of a case of torture brought against the Gambian authorities by a victim, Musa Saidykhan, a Gambian journalist now in exile. [more]

On 1 July 2010, Zambian President, Rupiah Banda launched a verbal attack on The Post newspaper by alleging that The Post Newspaper was an upside-down newspapers and said people should interpret whatever it published in the opposite.[more]

On 30 June 2010, United States Ambassador to Lesotho Robert Nolan, called on the government of Lesotho to give access to all stakeholders to state-controlled media.

Nolan made the call on the occasion of the celebration of the 234th anniversary of the independence of the United States of America.

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Today, July 7, 2010 marks the fourth year of the arrest and detention of a Gambian journalist, Chief Ebrima Manneh, a reporter of Banjul-based pro government, Daily Observer newspaper. [more]

African National Congress (ANC) is set to have its own newspaper which is set to go public in September 2010. The publication will be funded by the Gupta Group which is closely linked to the party president Jacob Zuma and the ANC.[more]

The Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Services (SBIS), a state radio broadcaster, has banned trade unions from accessing the radio station unless they have been sanctioned by the police.[more]

A new media bill that will liberalize the airwaves and insulate the state-owned media in Mauritania from governmental control was adopted by the country’s National Assembly on July 2, 2010. According to Hamdi Ould Mahjoub, the country’s Communication and Parliamentary Affairs minister, when the law comes into force it would not only liberalize the electronic media but also eliminate the monopoly of the state over public media.

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Radio France Internationale has launched its Swahili language daily radio broadcast on Monday from Dar-Es-Salam. A team of nine journalists, headed by manager David Coffey will produce news, features, sports and music magazines to be broadcast for two hours daily to RFI stations throughout the continent.[more]

Reporters Without Borders hails the enshrinement of the principle of press freedom in Guinea’s new constitution and the promulgation of two new laws by the country’s military leader, Gen. Sékouba Konaté, on 22 June, one decriminalising press offences and the other creating a new media regulatory body. The laws were published in the government gazette on 28 June.[more]

The Somali Islamist insurgent group Hizbul Islam has warned Somali media against covering celebrations of the country’s 50th anniversary today, according to news reports. [more]

A Somali correspondent for the New York Times, Mohammed Ibrahim, told IPI by phone on Thursday that he had fled the country following death threats and attempted arrest by government security forces. [more]

The fifth annual Digital Citizen’s Indaba (DCI) [www.dcindaba.com], held on July 7 at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, will draw together citizens, advocates, bloggers and activists to discuss how new media can revolutionise development work and give a voice to the unheard or silenced. This year’s theme, Africa’s underdevelopment: Digital Citizens.[more]

What is reportedly the first media summit for South Africa will be held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) on 11 November 2010. The objectives are to discuss and debate the challenges facing today's rapidly evolving magazine landscape and obtain a comprehensive understanding of what advertising over the next decade will look like and the implications for magazines.[more]

Administrative chaos, which crippled the first week of the parliamentary constitutional select committee’s national consultation exercise, meant to gather the aspirations of Zimbabweans in the new constitution, took centre stage in all the media this week.[more]

ARTICLE 19 calls upon the Government of President Kagame to investigate all incidents of violence against activists, journalists and human rights defenders, in the lead up to Rwanda’s August elections, and ensure they are able to carry out their legitimate activities in safety.[more]

Ethiopia’s postal service should a conduct thorough and transparent investigation into the tampering of mail addressed to the country’s leading critical newspaper, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.[more]

Reporters Without Borders is astonished that the National Council for Communication (CNC), the media regulatory body, has ignored a joint letter it received on 8 June from local human rights and journalists’ organisations that condemned the very disturbing tone of pro-government Rema FM’s broadcasts in the tense run-up to the 28 June presidential election.[more]

Reporters Without Borders and Journalist in Danger (JED), its partner organisation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, are alarmed about the situation of press freedom in this country on the eve of the 50th anniversary of its independence. As many foreign leaders arrive in Kinshasa for tomorrow’s celebrations, the two organisations call on the Congolese authorities and the international community to work together to improve the climate for journalists.[more]

The International Federation of the Journalists (IFJ) today strongly condemned the bomb attack against eight journalists on Tuesday, 29th June 2010 in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia.[more]

Mobile network operator Vodacom has expressed disappointments to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) after it proposed another round of rate cut into the interconnection fee. Vodacom pleaded with the regulator to delay the second round of interconnection rate cuts, arguing should the new rate be introduced in July 2010 it would “devastate” the industry.[more]

Government Actions Undermine Democracy as Presidential Election Draws Near[more]

The International Federation of the Journalists (IFJ) today strongly condemned the bomb attack against eight journalists on Tuesday, 29th June 2010, the injury of another journalist on July 1st and the arrest of two journalists in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia.[more]