On April 2, 2010, the Conseil Nationale de la Press (CNP) fined a pro-government newspaper Le Temps newspaper one million CFA francs (about.US$2, 000).
Gambia ALERT: Journalist receives death threats
Yusupha Cham, a Gambian journalist, now based in the United Kingdom, was living in fear after receiving death threats from persons suspected to be agents of the notoriously feared National Intelligence Agency (NIA) of the Gambia.
The senders in two email messages claimed Cham had been attacking the administration of President Yahya Jammeh in articles he had been contributing to Gambian news websites.
Cham, a former reporter of the privately-owned Banjul-based The Point newspaper within a period of 24 hours received a number of email messages warning him to desist from criticizing President Jammeh. One of the email messages headlined: “We are watching you,” came from email address, [email protected], bearing the name “Musa Jammeh”. This message was sent to the journalist at about 15:30 hrs GMT on April 1, and part of it read: “We members of the Gambian security force, precisely the National Intelligent Agency or NIA have been following and monitoring you with keen interest since you left the country”
An earlier message which came to Cham on March 31 at about 15:23 GMT was entitled: “You are located” and was sent from one “Ismaila Sanyang” through [email protected]. This message threatened the journalist and his family.
“You have to be extremely careful only if you value your life and that of your family because whoever is found wanting or opposing the ideals of our able President DR. PROFESSOR SHIEKH YAHYA A.J.J. JAMMEH will surely pay the price”.
According to Cham, these threats were coming at a time when he had started contributing articles to a number of websites which the agents were claiming to be attacking the government of President Jammeh.
Liberia ALERT: Newspaper journalist assaulted
Peter Fahn, reporter of the state-owned New Liberia newspaper was reportedly assaulted by state security officials deployed at the Samuel K. Doe Sports Stadium in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia.
According to colleagues of Fahn, one of the assailants, Ansu Johnson, who is a presidential guard, slapped the journalist twice and hit him in the chest after he attempted entering the Stadium to cover an ECOWAS regional conference being held there.
The security personnel assaulted Fahn though he showed his accreditation and identity cards to them. However, the security authorities denied the assault on the journalist.
A director of the security service, Dominic Peters, said the journalist was only shoved aside for breaching protocol procedure, after reporting late to the function.
Ghana ALERT: Traditional youth group threatens journalist, radio station
The Ashanti Youth Incorporated, a traditional youth group in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city, gave a three-day ultimatum to the management of Multimedia Broadcasting Company, owners of a network of radio stations including Luv FM in Kumasi, to sack the host of a morning newspaper review programme, Ato Kwamena Dadzie, for allegedly insulting the king of Ashanti, the Asantehene.
The programme is relayed on Luv FM and all the group’s stations across the country.
The group’s vice president, Blessed Godsbrain Smart who is also a morning show host on another Kumasi station, privately-owned Fox FM, reportedly threatened to “vandalize” Luv FM, which relays Dadzie’s newspaper review programme, originally broadcast from Accra-based Joy FM.
However, in a telephone interview with the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Smart denied using the word “vandalize” but said he was conveying the orders of members of the Ashanti Youth Incorporated and that Dadzie had been given up to March 24 to apologise otherwise they would “go to” the station on March 25.
“Until Dadzie apologises, his voice is banned in Kumasi,” he added.
The threat followed an opinion piece that Dadzie wrote on his blog www.atod.com, which was also posted on www.myjoyonline.com, the Website of Multimedia Broadcasting Company which owns both Luv and Joy FM. The article had attacked the Asantehene (Ashanti King) over comments he made in the wake of a feud between him and another traditional chief.
Saeed Ali Yakub, Luv FM news editor, told MFWA that the management of the media group had presented a complaint about the group’s threats to the Ashanti Regional command of the Ghana police with recordings of Fox FM’s morning show on which Smart issued his threat.
This is an unfortunate example of the political partisanship among Ghana’s private radio stations and media generally that is dividing the industry and adding fuel to the rancorous bickering among political forces in the country today.
Gambia ALERT: Military detains two newspaper journalists
Sanna Camara and Saikou Jammeh, reporters of privately-owned Banjul-based The Daily News newspaper were arrested and detained by military officers drawn from the Tourism Security Unit (TSU) of the Gambia Armed Forces, while on an editorial assignment at a tourist site.
The two were detained for about two hours after being accused of taking photographs of the beach without authorisation.
Camara and Jammeh were released after signing an undertaking not to write any negative stories about the visit.
Gambia ALERT: Court remands rights defender over “false information”
The Kanifing Magistrate Court remanded Edwin Nebolisa Nwakaeme, a local human rights defender and director of programmes of the Banjul-based Africa in Democracy and Good Governance (ADG) in police custody for allegedly “giving false information”.
Nwakaeme declined to enter a plea and was remanded to reappear in court on March 10.
The rights defender was first picked up on February 22 by three plain-clothed policemen drawn from Serekunda.
The activist who is a Nigerian and based in the Gambia was later transferred to New Jeshwang Immigration Post and detained until February 25 when he was released without charge.
Nwakaeme was again invited on March 1st and was unlawfully detained at the Serious Crime unit of the Gambian police headquarters for eight days, far in excess of the 72 hours stipulated under the 1997 Constitution of The Gambia.
Ghana ALERT: Newspaper wins a seven-year old defamation case, editor fined for contempt
Ghana’s Supreme Court awarded 2,000 GH Cedis (about US$1400) in favour of privately-owned Accra-based The Daily Dispatch newspaper, its editor, reporter and publisher, Ben Ephson, Akwasi Mensah and Allied News Limited respectively, as legal costs, in a defamation case brought against them in 2003.
The five-member panel unanimously dismissed the defamation charges brought by a traditional chief, Daasebere Nana Osei Bonsu, paramount chief of Mampong Traditional Area in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.
Nana Bonsu brought the legal action following an April 9, 2003 petition that The Daily Dispatch reproduced in an article. The newspaper’s article headlined: “Mamponghene (Paramount chief of Mampong) in 26, 400 GH Cedis (about US$18,600) fraud” was to the effect that some aggrieved persons purporting to be acting on behalf of one Rosina Mensah, a US based Ghanaian, had accused the chief of collecting an amount of US$ 30, 000 with the promise of making her the queen mother of the area.
That was the second time that a court had ruled in favour of The Daily Dispatch in respect of this case. An Accra High Court presided over by Justice Victor Ofoe on October 18, 2004 dismissed the plaintiff’s case against the newspaper. However, on July 13, 2006, a Court of Appeal overturned the earlier ruling by the high court.
The defendants represented by Kweku Y. Painstil, unhappy with the Appeal’s Court decision, proceeded to the Supreme Court.
In an interview with the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Ben Ephson, the newspaper’s editor said the court ruling was a vindication of The Daily Dispatch’s editorial policy of publishing only the truth.
In another development, an Accra High Court on February 26 convicted Raymond Archer, editor-in-chief of the privately-owned The Enquirer newspaper with a fine of 2,400 GH Cedis (about US$1,700) for contempt of court or in default go to prison for two weeks in hard labour.
The conviction came after the newspaper had carried out an order by the court to retract and apologize for publishing a series of allegations against Akwasi Osei-Adjei, a former foreign minister, and another person standing trial on criminal charges of causing financial loss to the state. The newspaper had alleged that the two men were buying witnesses in the case in which they were being tried. The editor had not been able to prove his allegations to the court.
Guinea Bissau ALERT: Journalist threatened with death
A journalist of Radio Bombolom-FM, Mama Saliu Sané, received death threats during the early hours of the morning from some unknown persons who broke into his house, possibly with the intention of killing him.
According to Sané, the assailants who were armed with machetes, knives and heavy stones, left the weapons in his living room. Minutes later they returned to the house saying they did not want to kill him but to leave a warning to Amine Saad, the State Prosecutor.
The Union of Journalists and Technicians of the Social Information Sector (SINJOTECS), on being informed about the incident, strongly condemned this barbaric act and expressed their solidarity with Sane, his family and the radio station Bombolom-FM, and called the attention of the authorities to ensure the security of citizens particularly journalists.
Ghana UPDATE: Remanded opposition party sympathizer granted bail
Nana Darkwa, the opposition party sympathizer who was remanded for allegedly implicating Ghana’s former president Jerry John Rawlings in a fire that gutted his (Rawlings’) own house was granted bail by an Accra High Court, following an application to that effect by his counsel.
Elated, Kwame Akuffo, Darkwa’s lawyer told Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) that his client was admitted into bail in the sum of 400 GH Cedis (about US$ 278) and one surety to reappear on a later date.
Darkwa, who is said to be a sympathiser of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), was arrested at the prompting of Kofi Adams, special aide to the former president, following allegations he made on a newspaper review programme on Top Radio, a privately-owned Accra-based radio station that the former president deliberately set fire to his house on February 14 in order to be relocated.
According to Adams “the gentleman made a categorical statement that the former president burnt his house and dared me, his spokesperson, to come and challenge him, and that he is aware that the former president burnt his house,” he told an Accra-based Joy FM private radio station.
Darkwa was charged with “publishing false information with the intent of causing public harm”, a charge under Article 208 of the country’s Criminal Code.
Ghana ALERT: Opposition activist remanded for “publishing false information”
A Circuit Court in Accra, capital of Ghana, remanded Nana Darkwa, a contributor to a radio discussion programme, into prison custody for two weeks over comments he made on a radio station allegedly implicating Ghana’s former President Jerry John Rawlings in a fire that gutted his (Rawlings’) own house on February 14.
In an interview with Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Kwame Akuffo, Darkwa’s lawyer said the court did not give any reason for remanding Darkwa who is said to be a sympathiser of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Darkwa, together with George Best, another supposed opposition sympathiser, were picked up by the police and detained at the Accra regional command of the Ghana Police Service following a complaint filed by Kofi Adams, special aide to the former president.
According to Adams “the gentleman made a categorical statement that the former president burnt his house and dared me, his spokesperson, to come and challenge him, and that he is aware that the former president burnt his house.” He told an Accra-based Joy FM private radio station.
Darkwah was charged with “publishing false information with the intent of causing public harm”, a charge under Article 208 of the country’s Criminal Code.
MFWA considered the remanding of Darkwa for two weeks on a matter of his exercise of his right to free speech, however unsubstantiated, as heavy-handed and not a judicious exercise of the Court’s powers to grant or refuse bail. In the MFWA’s view, this is a matter in which the court could grant bail, at least. There did not appear to be any compelling reason why the accused was refused bail, especially when the law enjoins the court not to use the refusal of bail as a means of punishment.
MFWA demanded that the court frees Darkwa unconditionally in the service of promoting the strengthening of free speech in Ghana’s developing democracy.
We urged all supporters of free speech to protest against the use of archaic laws to stifle free speech in Ghana by the country’s courts.
Liberia ALERT: Court fines newspaper, photojournalists
A Civil Law Court in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, ordered the New Democrat, a privately-owned newspaper to pay an outrageous amount of US$ 900,000 as damages for defaming the reputation of Consolidated Group Incorporated, a pay per view provider in Liberia.
The fine fell short of the US$1.3 million that the plaintiff demanded.
The fine followed an October 2008 article that the New Democrat published accusing the former Public Works Minister, Lusinee Donzo, of engaging in underhand dealing with the group. The article headlined: “For Scrap Government paid 800-thousand US Dollars” alleged that the group supplied sub standards equipment to the ministry.
The newspaper’s counsel expressed an interest to appeal.
In another development, Boima Boima, a New Democrat photographer who attempted taking photographs of jurors after the court session was harassed by court officials and his camera was damaged.
Mauritania: Online editor sentenced
The Appeals’ Court in Nouakchott sentenced the managing editor of the electronic newspaper, www.taqadoumy.com , to a two-year mandatory prison term. Hanevi Ould Dahah was sentenced for “acts contrary to accepted standards of good behaviour, inciting to revolt and unlawful publication”, according to the verdict of the Appeals’ Court.
On August 19, 2009, the magistrates’ court of Nouakchott had sentenced Hanevi Ould Dahah, to six months mandatory imprisonment and a fine of US$30. This sentence was quashed by the Supreme Court on January 15, 2010 after the journalist had served his term by December 24, 2009.
On February 26, 2010, Ould Dahah was released following a presidential pardon, along with about one hundred other common law prisoners.