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Category: License

  • Senegal delays election, authorities cut mobile internet, revoke Walf TV’s license, harass journalists

    Dakar, February 5, 2024—Senegalese authorities must restore mobile internet access in the country and the broadcasting license of Walf TV, investigate and hold accountable those responsible for briefly detaining or harassing at least four journalists, and allow the press to report freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Monday.

    On Saturday, Senegalese President Macky Sall announced that the presidential election originally scheduled for February 25 would be indefinitely postponed, citing a dispute over the candidate list. On Monday, as Senegalese lawmakers began debating the duration of the postponement, protesters took to the streets, and police responded with arrests and tear gas.

    “Senegalese authorities must immediately lift the mobile internet suspension, reverse the decision to permanently withdraw Walf TV’s broadcasting license, and ensure journalists are not restricted or harassed while covering ongoing protests,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program. “As Senegal grapples with the postponement of elections, journalists play a vital role in helping the public understand what is happening. Their ability to report, including via mobile internet, must be protected, not censored.”

    On Sunday, Senegal’s Ministry of Communication, Telecommunications, and Digital Economy (MCTPEN) announced it had “temporarily” suspended access to mobile internet due to “hateful and subversive” messages on social media, without indicating the duration of the cutoff.

    Internet users began to notice disruption to their mobile connectivity on Monday, according to CPJ’s review of service in the country. Mobile internet accounts for 97% of user connections, according to a September 2023 report by Senegal’s Telecommunications and Postal Regulatory Authority, which regulates the sector.

    Also on Sunday, Senegalese authorities permanently withdrew the broadcasting license of Walf TV, the television broadcast service of the privately owned media group Wal Fadjri and one of the country’s major broadcasters, according to CPJ’s review of access to the channel in the country and a copy of the MCTPEN’s decision. The ministry cited Wal Fadjri’s “state of recidivism,” the broadcasting of violent images exposing teenagers, and “subversive, hateful, and dangerous language that undermines state security.”

    Walf TV’s broadcasts on Sunday focused on the escalating protests, according to CPJ’s review, which did not identify any calls to violence in that coverage.

    The same day, officers with Senegal’s gendarmerie in Dakar, the capital, harassed and briefly detained reporters Sokhna Ndack Mbacké, with the privately owned online news site Agora TV, and Khadija Ndate Diouf, with the privately owned television channel Itv, before releasing them without charge, Mbacké and Diouf told CPJ. Mbacké told CPJ that the officers snatched her phone, insulted both of them, and that one officer threatened her with imprisonment if he saw her again.

    Separately, a different group of gendarmerie officers harassed Hadiya Talla, editor-in-chief of the privately owned news site La Vallée Info, interrupting his live broadcast from the protests in Dakar, according to Talla, who spoke to CPJ. First, an officer grabbed Talla’s phone and insulted him before returning it, and then later an officer interrupted his live coverage and ordered him to stop reporting, before letting Talla continue.

    The same day, a group of gendarmes twice threw tear gas in the direction of Clément Bonnerot, correspondent for the French-language global broadcaster TV5 Monde, as he stood alone in a Dakar street, filming the security forces, according to Bonnerot and CPJ’s review of a video he shared of the scene. Bonnerot told CPJ that another gendarme later accused him of “following him” and warned not to “provoke him.”

    CPJ’s calls to Ibrahima Ndiaye, spokesperson for the gendarmerie, went unanswered.

    Also in June 2023, Senegalese authorities in June 2023 suspended Walf TV for a month over its coverage of demonstrations following Sonko’s arrest and threatened to withdraw its broadcasting license in the event of a repeat offense.

    Previously, in June, July, and August 2023, the Senegalese government disrupted access to the internet and social media platforms amid protests over the arrest and prosecution of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko. TikTok has remained blocked in the country. Similar blocks of social media platforms were reported in 2021.

    Around the world, CPJ has repeatedly documented how internet shutdowns threaten press freedom and journalists’ safety. CPJ offers guidance for journalists on how to prepare for and respond to internet shutdowns.

    At least five journalists—Daouda Sow, Maniane Sène Lô, Ndèye Astou Bâ, Papa El Hadji Omar Yally, and Ndèye Maty Niang, who is also known as Maty Sarr Niang—have remained jailed in Senegal since last year in connection with their work.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Senegalese broadcaster Walf TV suspended for 1 month, threatened with permanent license revocation

    On June 1, 2023, Senegalese Minister of Communication, Telecommunications, and Digital Economy Moussa Bocar Thiam ordered a 30-day suspension of Walf TV, the television broadcast service of the privately owned media group Wal Fadjri, over its coverage of ongoing countrywide protests. 

    Authorities cut off Walf TV’s broadcast signal on June 1 and restored broadcasts on July 1. Wal Fadijri’s radio, print, and online services continued to publish during that time, according to CPJ’s review of their output. 

    In early June, protests escalated following the sentencing of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison for “corrupting youth,” prompting authorities to disrupt access to online platforms and mobile internet. 

    Thiam’s order, which CPJ reviewed, justified the suspension by claiming Walf TV “constantly” broadcasted violent images about teenagers joining the protests and aired “subversive, hateful and dangerous statements” which incited violence and undermined state security. 

    If Wal Fadjri is found to repeat the offense, the order said the group’s television broadcast authorization could be subject to “definitive withdrawal.”

    “We have been forced to lay off many of our employees, who technically could no longer do anything, as they were deprived of their work tools,” Cheikh Niass, Wal Fadjri’s managing director, told CPJ via messaging app. Niass said the company was later able to rehire those workers.

    Wal Fadjri challenged the suspension at Senegal’s Supreme Court, and on June 22, the court declined to reverse the order because the suspension was already well underway and the purpose was in the “public interests,” according to Niass and a copy of the court ruling reviewed by CPJ.

    Moustapha Diop, Wal Fadjri’s director of radio and television, told CPJ that the suspension had negatively impacted the staff’s morale and they felt a “sword of Damocles hanging over [them], and that the slightest mistake or error could result in prosecution.”

    CPJ’s calls to Thiam went unanswered. Calls to the Ministry of Communication, Telecommunications, and Digital Economy did not connect.

    On June 9, Senegalese authorities also blocked Wal Fadjri’s ability to use the Wave mobile money platform, hindering the group’s fundraising campaign launched the same day. The group received the 40 million francs (US$66,300) collected via Wave on Monday, July 3, after the block expired.

    Senegal’s National Council for Audiovisual Regulation (CNRA) suspended Walf TV for seven days in February 2023 and 72 hours in March 2021 over its political demonstration coverage. In March 2022, the regulator also issued a 72-hour suspension for broadcasters ZIK FM and Sen TV over political coverage.

    In March 2023, police arrested Walf TV reporter Pape Ndiaye on false news charges and released him on bail on June 20 under strict conditions.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Myanmar military revokes media license of Ayeyarwaddy Times

    Bangkok, June 16, 2023—Myanmar’s junta regime should reverse the ban imposed on the Ayeyarwaddy Times and stop harassing local media groups over their independent news coverage, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

    On June 10, Myanmar military authorities revoked the Ayeyarwaddy Times’ media license for allegedly breaching Article 8 of the Publishing Act, which bans disseminating information that disrupts public peace and tranquility, according to Salai Thant Sin, the outlet’s editor-in-chief who communicated with CPJ by email, and a report by local independent media group Democratic Voice of Burma. 

    Since staging a coup on February 1, 2021, the junta has banned 14 news publications, the DVB report said. Salai Thant Sin told CPJ that military authorities have singled out his news website’s journalists since the coup, arresting reporter Aung Mya Than twice for his reporting.

    “Myanmar’s military regime will stop at nothing to block, censor, and ban independent reporting about its junta government’s rule,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Authorities should reverse their unjust ban on the Ayeyarwaddy Times, cease harassing its reporters, and let all independent media outlets work freely.”

    Salai Thant Sin said his publication, which operates mainly from underground due to persistent threats to its reporters, would continue to publish despite the ban. As of Friday, June 16, the publication was still online and actively publishing.

    Salai Thant Sin told CPJ that Ayeyarwaddy Times editor Myo Min Tun was recently released, after a court sentenced him in October 2022 to two years in prison under the penal code’s Article 505(a), a broad provision that criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of false news. Police and military authorities arrested the journalist at his home in Pathein on October 22, 2021.

    Salai Thant Sin, who faces a warrant for his arrest and lives in exile, said authorities have questioned several other Ayeyarwaddy reporters, some of whom have stopped working as journalists due to personal safety concerns and fear of imprisonment.

    CPJ’s email to Myanmar’s Ministry of Information did not receive a response. Myanmar was the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 42 members of the press behind bars, at the time of CPJ’s December 1, 2022, prison census. 


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • License to Loot

    A “license to loot” is what our guest, economist William Lazonick, calls stock buybacks. Until the Reagan Revolution, stock buybacks were considered market manipulation and at the very least are an unproductive use of profits used only to pump up the stock price and enrich upper management, while neglecting workers’ wages, capital expansion, and innovation. Ralph and Professor Lazonick break it all down for you.

    William Lazonick is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. His recent work includes Predatory Value Extraction: How the Looting of the Business Corporation Became the US Norm and How Sustainable Prosperity Can Be Restored,  and the forthcoming book Investing in Innovation: Confronting Predatory Value Extraction in the U.S. Corporation.

    The ideology that enables buybacks, that makes a lot of people including economists say, “Oh, they’re just fine. The money’s just going to the economy,” is what I call the myth of the market economy—the way in which we get capital formation in the economy is just by money zipping around. But it doesn’t work that way. The money has to stop somewhere.

    William Lazonick

    It’s not because the United States does not have the capability to do these things— the capability is in the wrong hands. And it’s being wasted and destroyed. So it’s not simply the amount of money that’s making people rich. But those people who are getting rich are actually getting rich by helping to destroy the industrial base of the United States, including the middle class.

    William Lazonick

    These giant companies— these US companies that grew in the USA on the back of their workers, went to Washington for subsidies or bailouts when they were greedy or in trouble, and had the US Marines defend them around the world— are not only disinvesting on a massive scale in the necessities for a productive economy. But they are engaging in the ironic trend that can be called the corporate destruction of capitalism, whose base, in essence, is investment.

    Ralph Nader

    While these corporate bosses insist on massive domination of our political economy—from Washington to Wall Street— they’re not delivering. For the economy, for the workers, for the people who are trying to make it through every day and protect their families and their descendants. In behaving this way, they have reached a historic level of conflict of interest with their own companies.

    Ralph Nader



    Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe


    This content originally appeared on Ralph Nader Radio Hour and was authored by Ralph Nader.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Ethiopia withdraws Addis Standard license, outlet ceases publication

    Nairobi, July 15, 2021 – In response to Ethiopian authorities’ withdrawal today of the news website Addis Standard’s license, prompting the outlet to suspend operations, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement:

    “For years, Addis Standard has been an important source of critical reporting and commentary on Ethiopia. Today’s move to withdraw its license is the latest demonstration of the government’s hostility towards independent journalism,” said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative. “Authorities should immediately restore Addis Standard’s license, ensure that it can operate independently, and cease all efforts to harass and censor journalists and media outlets.”

    The Addis Standard tweeted a statement today saying that it had ceased operations after the Ethiopia Media Authority, the country’s statutory regulator, had withdrawn the license of the outlet’s publisher, JAKENN Publishing P.L.C. The regulator did not provide any reason for the decision, that statement said.

    Addis Standard was established as a magazine in 2011, and became an online-only outlet in 2016 amid government restrictions that led printers to refuse to publish it, according to news reports and the outlet’s website.

    Last year, authorities detained Addis Standard editor Medihane Ekubamichael for several weeks without charge, according to CPJ reporting from the time and a report by Addis Standard.

    Yonatan Tesfaye, deputy director-general of the media authority, told CPJ in a phone call that the regulator had suspended Addis Standard’s license pending investigation, following complaints that the outlet was undermining Ethiopia’s national security by publishing content that was illegal and “legitimizes terrorist groups.” He declined to elaborate on what specific content was cited in those complaints, or the specific laws that the outlet allegedly contravened, saying that the authority would provide details later.

    Yonatan said, contrary to Addis Standard’s statement, that the outlet had been informed about the reason for the license withdrawal.


    This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.