imprisoned - The African Mirror

Apr

2024

Tunisian court imprisons journalist for insulting public official, his lawyer says

A Tunisian court sentenced the prominent journalist Mohamed Boughalab, a fierce critic of President Kais Saied, to six months in prison on charges of insulting a public official, his lawyer told Reuters. "It is a black day for the judiciary and freedom of the press. It is a message to the press: Be silent or your place is in prison," Jamal Eddine Boughalab, who is the brother of Mohamed, said. Boughalab was detained last month, which the journalists' union said was aimed at silencing the voices of journalists.

Jul

2022

By The African Mirror

UN rights mission finds ‘probable’ mass graves in Libya

NEWS

EMMA FARGE and ANGUS MCDOWALL A U.N.-appointed mission to Libya said there are "probable mass graves" yet to be investigated, possibly as many as 100, in a town where hundreds of bodies have already been found, and it urged Tripoli to keep searching. The report to be submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council this week details how a militia run by seven brothers executed and imprisoned hundreds of people between 2016-2020, sometimes keeping them in tiny oven-like structures called "the boxes" which were set alight during interrogations. The evidence of kidnappings, murder and torture in Tarhouna, uncovered by the…

Sep

2021

By The African Mirror

Libya frees son of Muammar Gaddafi

NEWS

LIBYAN authorities have released Saadi Gaddafi, a son of the former leader Muammar Gaddafi who was ousted and killed during a 2011 uprising, a Libyan official source and a unity government source has said. Saadi Gaddafi fled for Niger during the NATO-backed uprising, but was extradited to Libya in 2014 and has been imprisoned since then in Tripoli. He immediately departed on a plane to Istanbul, the official source said. Libya has suffered chaos, division and violence in the decade since the uprising. The Government of National Unity was installed in March as part of a peace push that was…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

Cameroonian LGBT activist champions imprisoned transgender women

LGBT+

CHRISTOPHE VAN DER PERRE and JOSIANE KOUAGHEU COMING from Cameroon where letting it be known that she was a lesbian could lead to prison time, activist and social media influencer Bandy Kiki struggled to adjust to her newfound safety after emigrating to Britain a decade ago. Homosexuality is a criminal offence in Cameroon, punishable by up to five years in prison. "I kept thinking, 'Aren't the police going to show up and arrest everybody?'" she said about gatherings she would attend with members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community in Manchester. "My friends kept saying, 'Kiki, it's…

Dec

2020

By The African Mirror

Record number of journalists imprisoned in 2020 – report

MEDIA FREEDOM

A record number of journalists were imprisoned during 2020, as governments cracked down on coverage of the coronavirus pandemic or tried to suppress reporting of civil unrest, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has announced. At least 274 journalists were in jail as of December 1, the most since the New York-based group began collecting data in the early 1990s, the report said, up from at least 250 last year. Protests and political tensions were the cause of many arrests, with the most made in China, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, it said. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, authoritarian leaders tried…