To: President of Algeria Abdelmadjid Tebboune
President of Benin Patrice Talon
President of Burundi Pierre Nkurunziza
President of Cameroon Paul Biya
President of Chad Idriss Deby
President of Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
President of Eritrea Isaias Afwerki
Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed Ali
Prime Minister of Morocco Saad-Eddine El Othmani
President of Rwanda Paul Kagame

Sent via email

Your Excellencies,

We the 81 undersigned media, press freedom, and human rights organizations are writing to call on your respective governments to release all jailed journalists amid the sweeping COVID-19 pandemic.

Last week, the Committee to Protect Journalists published an open letter to world leaders urging the immediate release of all journalists imprisoned for their work. Given that a staggering number of these imprisoned journalists are held in jails across the African continent, we are reiterating that call to your respective countries at this time of grave public health concern.

According to CPJ’s most recent annual survey conducted on December 1, 2019, there were at least 73 journalists in prisons in Africa, including 26 in Egypt, 16 in Eritrea, seven in Cameroon, four each in Rwanda, Burundi, and Morocco, three in Algeria, and one each in Benin, Nigeria, Chad, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Somalia, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan.

As of March 31, at least 11 of these journalists have been released from jails in Somalia, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Nigeria, DRC, Algeria, Comoros, South Sudan, and Egypt, according to CPJ research. However, at least six more journalists and media workers have been jailed since December 1, and remain in prison as of March 31, including four in Ethiopia and one each in Cameroon and Algeria.

Article 16 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights states, “Every individual shall have the right to enjoy the best attainable state of physical and mental health.” These rights were extended to prisoners and detainees when the African Commission adopted the 1995 Resolution on Prisons in Africa.

According to the World Health Organization, “People deprived of their liberty, and those living or working in enclosed environments in their close proximity, are likely to be more vulnerable to the COVID-19 disease than the general population.”

For journalists jailed in countries affected by the virus, freedom is now a matter of life and death. Imprisoned journalists have no control over their surroundings, cannot choose to isolate, and are often denied necessary medical care.

Many of these journalists have been held in detention without trial for lengthy periods and are suffering from ill health exacerbated by underlying health conditions and overcrowded prisons, where they have contracted malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases.

We urge you to release every jailed journalist in your respective countries and to protect the free press and the free flow of information at this crucial time. Journalism must not carry a death sentence.

Sincerely,

• AccessNow
• African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL)
• Africans Rising
• amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism
• Article 19
• Association des Journalistes Burundais en Exil (AJBE)
• Association des journalistes du Burkina (AJB)
• Association des journalistes indépendants du Bénin (AJIB)
• Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia (AHRE)
• Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE)
• Cameroon Association of English-speaking Journalists (CAMASEJ)
• Cameroon Community Media Network (CCMN)
• Cellule Norbert Zongo pour le journalisme d’investigation en Afrique de l’Ouest/Norbert Zongo Cell for Investigative Journalism in West Africa (CENOZO)
• Center for Civil Liberties (Ukraine)
• Centre for Human Rights & Democracy in Africa (CHRDA)
• CIVICUS
• Civil Rights Defenders
• Coalition for Whistleblowers Protection & Press Freedom (CWPPF)
• Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
• Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO)- South Sudan
• Le Conseil national des patrons de presse du Togo (CONAPP)
• Consortium of Ethiopian Human Rights Organisations (CEHRO)
• EG Justice
• Eswatini Editors’ Forum
• Federation of Somali Journalists (FESOJ)
• Free Press Initiative (FPI)
• Gambia Press Union (GPU)
• Groupe d’Action pour le Progrès et la Paix (GAPP-Afrique) (Canada, Bénin, Mali)
• Guild of Professional Bloggers of Nigeria
• Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda (HRNJ-U)
• Index on Censorship
• INK Centre for Investigative Journalism (Botswana)
• Institute for Media and Society (IMS)
• International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR)
• International Press Centre (IPC)
• International Press Institute (IPI)
• International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
• Internet Sans Frontieres (ISF)
• Kenya Correspondents Association (KCA)
• Kenya Editors’ Guild (KEG)
• Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ)
• La Maison de la presse du Niger
• Laws and Rights Awareness Initiative (LRAI)
• Ligue des journalistes Tchadiens
• MARUAH (Singapore)
• Media Council of Tanzania (MCT)
• Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)
• Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)
• Media Monitoring Africa (MMA)
• MENA Rights Group
• Namibia Media Trust (NMT)
• Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ)
• Odhikar (Bangladesh)
• Observatoire de la Liberté de la Presse en Afrique (OLPA)
• One Day Seyoum
• Organisation Patronale des Médias du Gabon (OPAM)
• Paradigm Initiative (PIN)
• Patronat de la presse tchadienne
• PEN Eritrea
• PEN Nigeria
• Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ)
• Press Union of Liberia (PUL)
• Réseau des Défenseurs des Droits de l’Homme de l’Afrique Centrale (REDHAC)
• Réseau des Journalistes Burundais pour la CPI (RJB-CPI)
• Réseau des Journalistes pour les Droits de l’Homme en Centrafrique (RJDH-RCA)
• Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF)
• Right2Know (South Africa)
• Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
• Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ)
• Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS)
• South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF)
• Syndicat National des Journalistes Indépendants du Togo (SYNJIT)
• Syndicat des Professionels de l’Information et de la Communication du Sénégal (SYNPICS)
• Syndicat National des Professionnels de la Presse de Côte d’Ivoire (SYNAPP-CI)
• Syndicat National des Journalistes du Cameroun (SNJC)/Cameroon Journalists’ Trade Union (CJTU)
• The African Editors Forum (TAEF)
• Tournons La Page (TLP)
• Union Burundaise des Journalistes (UBJ)
• Union of Tanzania Press Clubs (UTPC)
• Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ)
• Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ)

cc:

African Union Chairperson President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa

African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

Corruption is one of the most dangerous beats for journalists, and one of the most important for holding those in power to account.

There is growing international recognition that corruption is also one of the biggest impediments to poverty reduction and good governance.

This is why journalists on this beat must be protected, including by multilateral lending institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which just concluded their annual meetings in Washington D.C.

At a civil society forum on the sidelines of the meetings last week, World Bank President Jim Young Kim and IMF President Christine Lagarde, leaders of two of the world’s most important lenders to poor countries, cited concern over corruption and the damaging impact that tax evasion has on poverty alleviation.

But with recipient countries often ranking among the more corrupt and least accountable, the issue of who pays taxes and where the money goes is often buried in secrecy.

In Pakistan, a major recipient of investment lending from the World Bank, journalist and winner of CPJ’s 2011 International Press Freedom Award, Umar Cheema, was kidnapped and brutally attacked after writing critical articles about corruption in Pakistan.

But he refused to be deterred and went on to launch an investigative reporting center dedicated to tax analysis in a country where few political appointees pay taxes.

“Particularly in repressive societies, or places run by oligarchs and overlords, journalists risk both their freedom and their safety simply by reporting on corruption and conflicts of interest,” David Kaplan, executive director of the Global Investigative Journalism Network, an association of more than 138 member organizations in 62 countries, said in an interview.

“Yet I can think of no graver issue faced by our members than corruption. It comes up in every issue we report on — the economy, crime, health care, education, the environment.” 

Courtney C. Radsch/CPJ Advocacy Director

Nairobi, Kenya – The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the decision by Liberian authorities to shut down the privately owned station Voice FM and called on the government today to allow the station to resume broadcasting immediately.

The Liberia Telecommunications Authority, a regulatory body that issues frequencies in the country, ordered Voice FM, a local political station, to cease broadcasting on July 4, and locked its Monrovia offices, according to news reports.

The authority said that the station, which has been broadcasting for two years, failed to register properly as a commercial station and did not pay the required fees and taxes associated with registration, according to reports.

The station, owned by Henry Costa, who also hosts the station’s morning show “The Henry Costa Show,” is known for its critical coverage of the government, according to reports. Costa denied that his station was not properly registered and provided CPJ with receipts that he said showed outstanding fees had been paid.

“The government is using the telecommunication authority to silence political criticism,” said CPJ Africa Senior Research Associate Kerry Paterson. “This is not acceptable in a democracy like Liberia. The authorities must allow Voice FM back on air immediately.”

In a legal petition that the Liberia Telecommunications Authority filed through the Justice Ministry, the authority claimed that Voice FM was operating on a frequency that had been allocated to a different radio station. The petition said the frequency was not transferred or renewed when that license expired in 2014, reports said.

The Liberia Telecommunications Authority did not immediately respond to CPJ’s request for comment.

Costa told CPJ that the station’s lawyers are appealing the decision to force the station off air. He added, “They may succeed in shutting us down today, but they can never take away my voice, they can never silence the Liberian people whose anger, disenchantment, views, and aspirations we espouse.”

In a statement to press on July 4, Henry Benson, the acting commissioner for Liberia Telecommunications Authority, told local news outlets that other stations operating without the necessary permits could also be closed, adding, there would be “more to come.”