Since the onset of the health crisis, which affected more than a million people and caused more than 21,000 deaths in Africa, RSF has already recorded more than a hundred press freedom attacks in connection with the coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic across the entire African continent. Zimbabwe alone has a quarter of the violations recorded, including a dozen arbitrary arrests , and ranks among the most repressive countries in this area
Qatari TV has rejected the accusations: but the whole affair is a sign of the conflict that has arisen between the government and journalists. Yet Reporter Sans Frontieres (RSF), the largest organization to defend press freedom, recently wrote that “after the surprise defeat of the party of ex-premier Najib Razak in May 2018, a breath of fresh air began to blow on the freedom of the press; the blacklisted journalists and mass media were able to resume their activity and the general environment in which the journalists operate has significantly eased; self-censorship has shrunk enormously and the country’s publications now present much more balanced views between the opposition and the majority”.
For Yemeni journalists Abdul Khaleq Amran, Akram Al-Walidi, Hareth Hamedand Tawfiq Al-Mansouri , who were tried by a Houthi court for spying, the maximum sentence was imposed on April 11 in Sanaa. Iranian opponent Rouhollah Zam, who ran the Telegram channel AmadNews , learned of his death sentence for “corruption on earth” just a week ago in Tehran
Freedom of the press, officially guaranteed by Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution, was one of the great demands of the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, crushed in blood by the Chinese regime on June 4, 1989 with a toll of several thousand dead. Thirty-one years later, the state apparatus and the Chinese Communist Party continue to flout this fundamental right on a daily basis and are now trying to extend their liberticidal practices to the rest of the world, as shown in a report published last year by RSF.
Ignace Sossou , investigative journalist for the information site Bénin Web TV, will appear before the Cotonou Court of Appeal tomorrow April 28, 2020. Convicted for “harassment by electronic means” in December 2019, he is detained in a prison in the Beninese capital for more than four months. Pursued for having relayed on social networks the words of a prosecutor held during a workshop on disinformation, he nevertheless committed no fault. In a video confronting the magistrate’s statements and the journalist’s tweets, RSF had managed to prove his total innocence and to show that he had taken verbatim the words of the prosecutor, whom he considered, as a journalist, to be ‘They were of public interest
Another novelty of 2020: these four countries, ruled by single communist parties, are joined in the “black zone” of the RSF Ranking by a fifth regime which has passed the lead in terms of absolute information control: Singapore. With its Orwellian law supposed to combat “false information”, the city-state loses seven places from one year to the next (158th)
The signal from Real TV has been cut for a week. While she was preparing to replay the interview with Marc Ravalomanana, the former president and historic rival of the current head of state Andry Rajoelina, the transmitter and the antenna of the private channel were damaged by strangers during the night of April 6 to 7. In a press release, the director of Real TV condemns these acts of sabotage and is astonished that individuals have been able to enter the scene despite the presence of soldiers “supposed to ensure the security of this strategic place.”
In particular, he discovered hungry children forced to eat grass for livestock because their parents, confined, cannot work and no longer earn enough daily wages to support their families
At the same time, press access to information was gradually restricted. Since March 17, journalists could no longer attend an event in the presence of Vladimir Putin without having taken their temperature at least three times . On March 19, foreign journalists were denied entry to the Russian parliament , and the courts began to prevent the press from accessing public hearings. While the Moscow court promised journalists written reports and video broadcasts “where possible”, the measure raises concerns about its arbitrary and not very transparent nature
This Monday, March 2, his appeal trial opened in “hallucinating” conditions according to one of his lawyers, Emmanuel Ravanas, who had traveled from Paris. Reached by RSF, he indicated that the hearing had been held directly “in the office of the Attorney General of the Republic” and that he had not had the opportunity to present his observations on the procedure. Initially enrolled in the first investigative chamber, the case was finally referred to a special chamber, the fourth, placed directly under the authority of the president of the Court of Appeal and in which the public prosecutor intervenes, without this change being motivated by any reason