Guinea-Bissau

Guinea-Bissau plunged into information blackout after 79 radio stations are shut down by government for not meeting an impossible deadline to renew licenses.

Several members of IFEX have joined rights-based organisations in petitioning Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embaló to improve the media freedom landscape, and thoroughly investigate serious media rights violations and ensure the prosecution of the perpetrators.

Guinea-Bissau journalist Maimuna Bari is currently in a coma, after sustaining spinal injuries following an attack on Rádio Capital FM by men in military uniform.

The Media Foundation for West Africa rolls out comprehensive project to promote media freedom and capacitate media associations and unions in Guinea-Bissau.

Radio journalist Emerson Gomes was forced to seek specialised medical treatment after being brutally attacked by a Guinea-Bissau Coast Guard officer.

Guinea-Bissau radio broadcaster Adão Ramalho narrowly escapes an abduction, just weeks after journalist António Aly Silva was kidnapped and assaulted.

António Aly Silva edits the privately owned news website “Ditadura de Consenso’, which frequently criticizes the country’s government and President Umaro Sissoco Embaló.

Authorities in Guinea-Bissau must probe an attack by security forces on journalist Souleymane Seidy and civil society activist Franique Da Silva, as police censor criticism of school closures.

A day after his on-air discussion on the month-long closure of schools, Guinea-Bissau journalist Souleymane Seidy was assaulted and detained by police while covering student protests.

It is unlikely that the media and political landscape in Guinea-Bissau will improve as the newly elected government are intent on continuing with the tradition of oppressing the media and muzzling free speech.

The attack on Radio Capital FM followed several threats to the station which its Management says were reported to the police.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the military occupation of Guinea-Bissau’s state television and radio stations and harassment of state media journalists.

Two independent radio stations were shut down two weeks before the start of the campaigning for the presidential election in Guinea-Bissau.

Staff from national broadcaster, Televisão da Guiné-Bissau, began a partial strike to protest political meddling and are demanding an end to censorship and bias in the coverage of news.

Portuguese journalist Fernando Teixeira Gomes was ordered to leave the country after he was accused of publishing “hostile reports” against the government.

On the day of the coup, the coup makers forced all the media houses to close down.