During the first quarter of 2026, IPI’s monitoring programme recorded 103 press freedom violations in 26 countries across sub-Saharan Africa. These spanned legal threats, arrests, and physical attacks, including the killing of a journalist in Somalia by a police officer.
As in previous monitoring reports, state actors (86%) remain the primary source of these violations, especially police and state security actors. The violations affected 141 journalists, including 21 women journalists.
In Somalia, a police officer shot and killed Abshir Khalif Shidane, a cameraman for the privately owned media outlet Horn Connect based in Mogadishu. The incident occurred while Shidane was returning home from a work assignment. It is unclear what led to the incident. The officer was arrested, and Somali authorities have launched an investigation. In a separate incident, on March 18, armed police officers assaulted and briefly detained two journalists, Amiro Ibrahim of Kaab TV and Iqro Abdirahman of Five Somali TV, while they were reporting on public protests against land grabbing and forced evictions in Mogadishu. Later that evening, police raided the home of Abdirahman and rearrested her. Police also confiscated the journalists’ work equipment.
In the DRC, on January 28, elements of the armed group AFC/M23 barred journalists from reporting on a landslide in a coltan mining zone in Rubaya, in the DRC’s North Kivu province. On March 3, individuals believed to be officers of the DRC’s National Intelligence Agency (ANR) arrested Serge Sindani, a journalist working for the online news website Kis24.info, in the city of Kisangani, in the northern Tshopo province. The officers accused Sindani of collaboration with the rebel groups M23/AFC, after he published rebel statements claiming responsibility for a drone attack on Kisangani’s Bangoka International Airport.
In Zimbabwe, in February, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Zhemu Soda threatened journalist Blessed Mhlanga of HSTV with criminal prosecution following Mhlanga’s speech at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy. Separately, in March, several journalists reported on public hearings on a law that would extend President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s term until 2030 among other amendments, were harassed and made to delete their footage.
Legislative developments affecting press freedom
In Senegal and South Sudan, authorities adopted laws that media and civil society communities fear may be used to stifle reporting. On February 18, President Salva Kiir of South Sudan signed into law the Cybercrime and Computer Misuse Act 2026. Globally, governments have increasingly used cybercrime laws to silence independent journalism under the pretext of curbing “false information” or other forms of harmful online content.
In Senegal, on March 3, the authorities adopted a new law establishing the National Media Regulatory Council (CNRM). While in theory the move seeks to address concerns arising from a rapidly evolving digital media landscape, press freedom groups have also warned that the new regulatory framework could negatively impact press freedom. The new law grants broad powers to the CNRM – including closing or suspending media outlets or blocking content, with decisions immediately enforceable without the possibility of appeal – that could be used to target reporting not to the liking of authorities. The law was passed without due consultation of key stakeholders of the country’s media industry.
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