“Airing political opinions and harsh criticism of officials and public figures are not crimes in a democracy,” said CPJ Africa Advocacy Coordinator Mohamed Keita. “We call on Ivorian authorities to lift the suspensions on Aujourd’hui, Le Mandat, and Le Temps and allow editor Joseph Titi to resume his journalistic work.”

The CNP suspended Aujourd’hui for 26 editions and banned editor Titi from practicing journalism for three months over critical articles that ran in three editions in November. The council said the paper “manipulate[ed] information” in a November 1 commentary suggesting that some pro-Ouattara women who led an anti-Gbagbo protest that was dispersed by security forces in March staged their own deaths. At least seven women were killed after pro-Gbagbo forces opened fire on the marchers, according to news reports.

The CNP also accused Aujourd’hui of reporting information of an “intolerable subversive nature” in a November 25 story on Gbagbo supporters in France celebrating his decision to reject U.N.-certified presidential election results declaring Ouattara the winner. In addition, the CNP accused the paper of “inciting violence” in an op-ed that ridiculed the Ouattara government’s dismissal of reports of an imminent currency devaluation, and a commentary calling the U.N. Secretary General’s Special Envoy to Ivory Coast Bert Koenders “ridiculous” and the grandson of slave holders.

Le Temps was suspended for 12 days over four articles published between November 30 and December 2, according to a copy of the decision. The CNP accused the paper of issuing “grave accusations of corruption” and “intolerable offense and outrage” against Youssouf Bakayoko, the former electoral commission chief, in an editorial raising questions about French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s influence on Bakayoko. Sarkozy had written a letter to Bakayoko, encouraging him to “quickly” announce the election results showing Ouattara the winner, news reports said. The council also accused Le Temps of offending public officials over a column calling Ouattara “an imposter” and describing Prime Minister Guillaume Soro as “bloodthirsty.”

The CNP imposed a six-day suspension on pro-Ouattara paper Le Mandat over four photo montages, published in its November 30 and December 1 editions, that mocked Gbagbo’s imprisonment and transfer to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, according to a copy of the decision. The council called the montages “grotesque” and the photographs “degrading,” and said they “constituted an intolerable attack on [Gbagbo's] dignity.”

The Ivorian government has used this form of repression before. In August, Le Temps was suspended for reprinting an opinion column criticizing a meeting between Ouattara and U.S. President Barack Obama.

Welcome to Hollywood, Sierra Leone style.

This small West African country has only one Western-style movie theater, but as of August it is now home to its very own film school. From his humble offices here amid the hustle of Freetown, the school’s director aims to train young Sierra Leoneans to create their own films. In the long run, he hopes the country’s homegrown movie industry might transform Sierra Leone’s battered image overseas.

“Sierra Leoneans have a lot of stories to tell,” says Ahmed Mansaray, the film school’s founding director. But today “most of the stories are being told [through] the binoculars of the white man.”

“We want to see Sierra Leoneans producing very good movies,” Mr. Mansaray adds, “and we want to see people telling their stories.”

For many in the West, Sierra Leone remains the land of blood diamonds and drugged-up child soldiers, even though the country has been at peace for nearly a decade.

A Hollywood film – the 2006 thriller “Blood Diamond,” which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly – helped crystallize that image for many overseas. The movie offered a bloody depiction of the conflict that ravaged Sierra Leone for most of the 1990s, but most of the filming was actually done more than 3,000 miles away in Mozambique.

“It annoyed us,” Mansaray says of “Blood Diamond.” “No Sierra Leonean was ever consulted.”

At a time when Sierra Leone was desperately looking to rebrand itself, the film scared off tourists and drove away investors, he adds. Sierra Leone’s new film industry – Sierrawood, as Mansaray likes to call it – will aim to erase those negative images and give the country a new face overseas.

“We want to be a very big industry that will provide quality films to the rest of the world,” he says. “We want to see ourselves winning competitions in America and Europe.”

“Ten years from now, we will beat Nollywood in terms of production, in terms of quality pictures,” he adds, referring to Nigeria’s film industry, which is now Africa’s biggest.

If there’s an African Hollywood type, Mansaray fits it to a tee: He wears a black suit, a gold-colored shirt, and a dapper hat tipped high on the back of his head. He has a quick smile and an easy manner – the air of a man who could make a killer elevator pitch.

Mansaray doesn’t have a degree in film studies or movie production, but he’s taken courses in France and Nigeria, and he’s worked on movie sets in Sierra Leone since 2003. He admits that his experience is limited, but he thinks he still has something to contribute.

“As they say, ‘the one-eyed man is a king in the kingdom of the blind,’” he says. “With my experience, I can do a lot.”

Mansaray weaves his way through the film school’s cluttered office, squeezing hands and slapping backs as he gives a visitor a tour of the premises. It only takes a few minutes; there isn’t a whole lot to see.

Housed inside the local Institut de Français, the film school consists of one classroom equipped with tables, chairs and a whiteboard; a small office for Mansaray; and a production room that has two computers – only one of which is working.

“It’s not an ideal place for a movie-making academy,” Mansaray admits. “But then, we can start here, we can start with the classroom at least.”

The school has 32 students, Mansaray says, most of whom are in their twenties and thirties. They’re being taught everything from the nuts and bolts of video production to the delicacies of movie makeup to the fine art of finalizing a script.

The total price for the school’s full 18-month program is about two million leones, or roughly $450. That’s a lot to ask in this country, where a heaping plate of groundnut stew costs just 50 cents, and where two thirds of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. But as expensive as that price tag may seem to many Sierra Leoneans, the $450-a-head fee isn’t enough to sustain the school; Mansaray has to rely on the Institut de Français for help.

“The money the students are paying cannot buy the smallest of cameras, even this one that I have here,” Mansaray says, gesturing to a handheld video camera that sits on his desk.

That little handheld is currently the school’s only working camera. There were two others – larger cameras that Mansaray had bought with his own money – but both recently broke in the clumsy hands of inexperienced students. So now the school is left with just the one little handheld, although sometimes the school rents equipment from commercial television stations around town.

As limited as its technical resources may be, Sierra Leone’s first film school has drawn a huge response from locals, Mansaray says. People are clamoring to get into the school – even many who have very little education.

“We got a lot of people that came that said, ‘I can’t read, I can’t write, but I want to be part of the film school.… What can your film school do for us?’”

Edward Sankoh is one of those people. A 40-year-old father of four, he works as a night guard in Freetown. He has come by the film school’s office this morning because he wants to enroll in a course.

“I have some friends who have cameras, and they showed me some of the pictures they’d taken,” he says. “I didn’t know how the camera worked, but they showed me where to press to take a picture.”

Mr. Sankoh says he wants to learn how to be a cameraman. He hopes that someday he might be able to quit his job as a night guard and take pictures instead.

The boat was, however, intercepted when it entered The Gambian territorial waters, and the occupants arrested on trumped-up charges of attempting to topple Yahya Jammeh, a semi-literate, masquerading as President.

The information was relayed to Mr. Jammeh, who was then celebrating the bloody coup that brought him to power. Without any proper investigation, the coup maker ordered his men to kill the Ghanaians.

The soldiers, acting upon the instructions of their Commander in Chief, handcuffed the Ghanaian immigrants and took them to a location, which was later identified as the family home of the man who calls himself President, and were subjected to severe torture.

In the course of the inhuman treatment, two of the innocent Ghanaians managed to escape, but one of the escapees was later arrested and slashed into pieces by one of the soldiers, using a machete.

After the cruel act, the soldiers collected the pieces of human flesh and put them in a sack, apparently as evidence to show to Yahya Jammeh that the job had been successfully executed.

The rest of the so-called Ghanaian mercenaries were transported into a forest and killed in cold blood. One of them, however, managed to escape to Senegal, and later returned to Ghana to break the news about the heinous crime.

President Yahya Jammeh, initially, denied knowledge of the crime, but after intense diplomatic pressure, admitted that his soldiers were behind it, but failed to tell the international community that he himself ordered the killings.

He offered to pay $500,000 as compensation to the family of the victims. He would, however, not accept claims that the victims were forty four (44), and insisted that only six Ghanaians were massacred.

The bodies of the six were subsequently brought home for a befitting burial. Six years after the slaughter of the Ghanaians, information filtering in indicates that the number of people that were actually killed was forty-four, and not six, as indicated by Yahya Jammeh.

A soldier in the Gambian Army has come out to make a chilling confession that it was President Jammeh who ordered the killing of the defenceless Ghanaians.

He also told the local media, on condition of anonymity, that President Jammeh also ordered the killing of the Associated Press (AP) correspondent in Banjul, Deyda Hydara, some years ago.

Below is the confession made by the soldier, who is still serving in the Gambian Army, about the killing of the journalist and Ghanaians. In an interview he granted the local media, he pleaded for anonymity.

“I have been sitting on this information for a while now. Since you have proven to be a credible and dependable journalist, I’m comfortable to relate to you about the people, who were responsible for the killings of the Ghanaians.

Ghanaian Killers Named While the July 22 nd 2005 Anniversary (Jammeh’s Coup) was in progress in Banjul, we received word that some mercenaries, who plotted to attack the country, were captured and detained by the Navy in Banjul.

The suspects were transported to the late Baba Jobe’s residence in Kotu for further processing. This is the residence where the President’s Mom lives.

The first batch of suspected Ghanaian mercenaries was later taken to Kanili. On arrival at the President’s home, two of the suspects escaped, while the third suspect was shot by WO 2 Malick Jatta, during his struggle to escape from custody.

One of the escapees was later apprehended at a village called Bambara in Foni, behind Kanilai. The village is situated near Allah-Kunda. The suspect was cut into pieces with a cutlass by Sana Manjang, before putting his remains into a bag locally known as ‘SAKO’. The bag, containing the murdered foreign national, was dumped near the outskirts of Buiam Santangba.

Pa, if you can recall, there was a time an unidentified dead body was found in the said locality. The body was wrapped in a bag. The body in question was part of the suspected murdered mercenaries. The man was killed by Sana Manjang. He was cut into pieces and wrapped in a bag by Manjang.

The story about the unidentified dead body found in the area was reported by the Daily Observer and GRTS. It was our men who perpetrated the killing.

The remaining suspects were shot and killed at close range at a place in Kanilai (location withheld for now). WO2 Malick Jatta and Sana Manjang carried out the killings, with the help of others named herein.

Both Malick and Sana were armed with MAB PISTOLS during the execution of the detainees. The suspects have been buried in Kanilai (location withheld for now), due to national security issues.

The other suspects were killed and dumped in the bushes of Brufut. The villagers later alerted the authorities when they found the smelling corpses.”

Techina Mutaru, Magazia of the Gambaga Witch Camp, who stated the position of the inmates, said they felt safer and more secure in the camps than living in their original communities.

According to her, some of them would lose their lives if they were reintegrated into their communities without a proper education and orientation for the community members.

Techina, vice president of the Alleged Witches Coalition, was speaking at the opening of a two-day conference organised by Action Aid-Ghana in collaboration with a local NGO, Songtaaba, to discuss issues affecting the alleged witches.

The conference which was under the theme: ‘Disband the Alleged Witches Camps; total Approach for Reintegration,’ was attended by inmates from the six camps in the region, representatives of the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit of the Police, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice among other stakeholders.

The Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs in concert with some NGOs have been calling for the closure of witches camps in the country, but Madam Techina advised that the matter be treated with care and diplomacy.

She said though they would have wished to go back to their communities, but the environment was not safe for them to be reintegrated now.

Madam Techina maintained that generally their community members were not prepared to welcome them; hence, the need for indepth consultation and education before any attempt to move them.

She, however, commended Action-Aid and its partners for the care and assistance without which “some of us would have died long ago.”

Memunatu Abukari another inmate expressed fear that they would be targeted for attacks in their communities in the event of any calamity after reintegration.

She said some of the community members were just not willing to see them in the communities as they always blamed them for their misfortunate.

Mr. Dan Kobila who read a speech on behalf of the Country Director of Action Aid Ghana stated that issues affecting the alleged witches had been of concern to the organisation since 2005 and would do everything possible to help ameliorate their suffering.

He expressed concern about the conditions under which inmates lived in the camps describing them as “bad and unacceptable”.

Mr. Kobila said it was time society stood up against maltreatment of the inmates and called on all to help halt it.

The Northern Regional Minister, Mr. Moses Bukari Mabengba, in a speech read on his behalf expressed government’s commitment to partner any organisation to free the inmates from the suffering and in-human treatment they were undergoing.

He commended the organisers for the forum and asked all the stakeholders to come out with suggestions for the possible reintegration of the alleged witches into their communities.

Among the best discoveries of 2011 was Bombino, a 21-year-old Tuareg guitarist with an Italian-inspired nickname, a life that in short order forced him to take up residence in four different countries around his beloved Sahara Desert, and a sound and shredding ability that inspire references to Jimi Hendrix.

Born in northern Niger in 1980 to a family that totaled 17 children, Bombino (Omara Moctar) spent his early years traveling between a Tuareg encampment and the small city of Agadez. Drought and then two vicious wars eventually scattered his community: He fled to Algeria and then Libya in the 1990s and, upon the start of a second Tuareg rebellion against the government of Niger in 2007 (when two of his musicians were killed), Bombino went into exile in Burkina Faso. He returned to Niger in 2010.

As a teenager, Bombino had already discovered his own escape: playing music. While his family was still in Algeria, some relatives left behind treasured guitars, and Bombino taught himself to pick out tunes by local bands like his elder heroes in Tinariwen. Later, an uncle presented him with the gift of his own guitar, and even amid constant personal upheaval, Bombino cultivated his music, his language and Tuareg traditions. He immersed himself in his life’s mission: to help his people achieve equal rights, and to preserve their unique identity peacefully.

Jimi Hendrix remains a touchstone for the so-called “Tuareg rock” or “desert blues” musicians like Bombino and Tinariwen, but Bombino’s music feels looser.