{
  "title": "Incidents in Africa, outcome ongoing",
  "canonical_url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents?continent=africa&outcome=ongoing",
  "filters": {
    "continent": "africa",
    "outcome": "ongoing"
  },
  "sort": "date",
  "count": 5,
  "page": 1,
  "pages": 1,
  "per_page": 50,
  "counts_caveat": "The number of entries reflects the depth of this record, not the severity of a country's conduct.",
  "facets": {
    "country": [
      {
        "value": "EG",
        "label": "Egypt",
        "rsf": {
          "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
          "year": 2026,
          "rank": 169,
          "of": 180,
          "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 169th of 180",
          "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
        }
      },
      {
        "value": "ER",
        "label": "Eritrea",
        "rsf": null
      },
      {
        "value": "ET",
        "label": "Ethiopia",
        "rsf": {
          "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
          "year": 2026,
          "rank": 148,
          "of": 180,
          "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 148th of 180",
          "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
        }
      }
    ],
    "continent": [
      {
        "value": "africa",
        "label": "Africa"
      }
    ],
    "tactic": [
      {
        "value": "detention_and_violence",
        "label": "Detention and violence",
        "count": 2
      },
      {
        "value": "outlet_licensing",
        "label": "Licensing and closure of outlets",
        "count": 2
      },
      {
        "value": "shutdowns_and_blocking",
        "label": "Shutdowns and blocking",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "prior_restraint",
        "label": "Prior restraint",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "funding_and_ownership_pressure",
        "label": "Funding and ownership pressure",
        "count": 1
      }
    ],
    "stage": [
      {
        "value": "pressure",
        "label": "Pressure",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "punish",
        "label": "Punish",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "silence",
        "label": "Silence",
        "count": 2
      },
      {
        "value": "eliminate",
        "label": "Eliminate",
        "count": 1
      }
    ],
    "level": [
      {
        "value": "national",
        "label": "National",
        "count": 4
      },
      {
        "value": "state_or_province",
        "label": "State or province",
        "count": 1
      }
    ],
    "outcome": [
      {
        "value": "ongoing",
        "label": "Ongoing",
        "count": 5
      }
    ],
    "leader": [
      {
        "value": "abdel-fattah-el-sisi",
        "label": "Abdel Fattah el-Sisi"
      },
      {
        "value": "abiy-ahmed",
        "label": "Abiy Ahmed"
      },
      {
        "value": "gamal-abdel-nasser",
        "label": "Gamal Abdel Nasser"
      },
      {
        "value": "isaias-afwerki",
        "label": "Isaias Afwerki"
      }
    ],
    "era": [
      {
        "value": "2020s",
        "label": "2020s",
        "count": 2
      },
      {
        "value": "2010s",
        "label": "2010s",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "2000s",
        "label": "2000s",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "1960s",
        "label": "1960s",
        "count": 1
      }
    ],
    "year": [
      {
        "value": "1960",
        "label": "1960",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "2001",
        "label": "2001",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "2018",
        "label": "2018",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "2020",
        "label": "2020",
        "count": 1
      },
      {
        "value": "2025",
        "label": "2025",
        "count": 1
      }
    ],
    "has_case": [
      {
        "value": "0",
        "label": "without a court case",
        "count": 5
      }
    ]
  },
  "results": [
    {
      "slug": "2025-ethiopia-arrests-journalists-sheger-fm",
      "title": "Ethiopia arrests at least six journalists including Sheger FM staff over election-year coverage",
      "occurred_on": "2025-09-03",
      "occurred_on_precision": "day",
      "country": "ET",
      "country_name": "Ethiopia",
      "continent": "africa",
      "jurisdiction": "ET",
      "level": "national",
      "tactic_primary": "detention_and_violence",
      "tactics": [
        "detention_and_violence",
        "outlet_licensing"
      ],
      "leader_slug": "abiy-ahmed",
      "leader_name": "Abiy Ahmed",
      "issue_of_the_day": "The arrests came ahead of Ethiopia's national elections scheduled for 2026, after the Ethiopian Media Authority ordered Sheger FM to remove an August 29, 2025 broadcast it said was one-sided and incited violence.",
      "outcome": "ongoing",
      "outcome_on": "2025-09-22",
      "outcome_note": "Some journalists were granted bail while an appeal proceeded; the media authority's order against Sheger FM remained in force.",
      "stage": "punish",
      "ladder_note": null,
      "rsf": {
        "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
        "year": 2026,
        "rank": 148,
        "of": 180,
        "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 148th of 180",
        "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
      },
      "era": "2020s",
      "granularity": "granular",
      "status": "in_effect",
      "case_count": 0,
      "summary": "Ethiopian authorities arrested at least six journalists between August and September 2025, including three from Sheger FM after the Ethiopian Media Authority ordered the station to delete a broadcast it accused of bias and inciting violence, ahead of national elections scheduled for 2026.",
      "url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2025-ethiopia-arrests-journalists-sheger-fm"
    },
    {
      "slug": "2020-ethiopia-tigray-internet-blackout",
      "title": "Ethiopia: internet and phone service cut across Tigray",
      "occurred_on": "2020-11-04",
      "occurred_on_precision": "month",
      "country": "ET",
      "country_name": "Ethiopia",
      "continent": "africa",
      "jurisdiction": "ET",
      "level": "state_or_province",
      "tactic_primary": "shutdowns_and_blocking",
      "tactics": [
        "shutdowns_and_blocking"
      ],
      "leader_slug": "abiy-ahmed",
      "leader_name": "Abiy Ahmed",
      "issue_of_the_day": "Not stated in the sources reviewed.",
      "outcome": "ongoing",
      "outcome_on": "2021-05-03",
      "outcome_note": "As of the May 2021 source, service had been only partially restored in the regional capital and surrounding areas.",
      "stage": "silence",
      "ladder_note": "Ethiopia cut internet and phone service to an entire region for months during a civil war, leaving reporters unable to confirm events without traveling there in person; no United States action in the record has cut off a region's communications.",
      "rsf": {
        "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
        "year": 2026,
        "rank": 148,
        "of": 180,
        "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 148th of 180",
        "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
      },
      "era": "2020s",
      "granularity": "granular",
      "status": "in_effect",
      "case_count": 0,
      "summary": "Ethiopia's government cut internet and telephone service across the Tigray region when war broke out there in November 2020, leaving the region without communication for months and forcing reporters to travel there to learn what was happening.",
      "url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2020-ethiopia-tigray-internet-blackout"
    },
    {
      "slug": "2018-egypt-scmr-license-requirement-al-manassa",
      "title": "Egypt: a license requirement leaves an independent news site unable to operate legally for years",
      "occurred_on": "2018-10-01",
      "occurred_on_precision": "month",
      "country": "EG",
      "country_name": "Egypt",
      "continent": "africa",
      "jurisdiction": "EG",
      "level": "national",
      "tactic_primary": "prior_restraint",
      "tactics": [
        "prior_restraint"
      ],
      "leader_slug": "abdel-fattah-el-sisi",
      "leader_name": "Abdel Fattah el-Sisi",
      "issue_of_the_day": "The licensing requirement operated alongside a 2018 cybercrime law that made it a crime to use certain software tools without the council's permission, according to Al-Manassa's editor.",
      "outcome": "ongoing",
      "outcome_on": "2020-10-26",
      "outcome_note": "Al-Manassa's editor said the outlet's 2018 license application had received no response as of the October 2020 interview.",
      "stage": "pressure",
      "ladder_note": "A national council required a license before a news site could operate at all and left the application unanswered for years rather than approving, denying or fining it.",
      "rsf": {
        "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
        "year": 2026,
        "rank": 169,
        "of": 180,
        "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 169th of 180",
        "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
      },
      "era": "2010s",
      "granularity": "granular",
      "status": "in_effect",
      "case_count": 0,
      "summary": "Egypt's Supreme Council for Media Regulation required news websites to obtain a government license to operate, and independent outlet Al-Manassa's application, filed in 2018, went unanswered for more than two years.",
      "url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2018-egypt-scmr-license-requirement-al-manassa"
    },
    {
      "slug": "2001-eritrea-jails-journalists-indefinitely",
      "title": "Eritrea: independent press closed and journalists jailed without trial",
      "occurred_on": "2001-09-18",
      "occurred_on_precision": "day",
      "country": "ER",
      "country_name": "Eritrea",
      "continent": "africa",
      "jurisdiction": "ER",
      "level": "national",
      "tactic_primary": "detention_and_violence",
      "tactics": [
        "detention_and_violence"
      ],
      "leader_slug": "isaias-afwerki",
      "leader_name": "Isaias Afwerki",
      "issue_of_the_day": "Not stated in the sources reviewed.",
      "outcome": "ongoing",
      "outcome_on": null,
      "outcome_note": "As of the 2010 source reviewed, none of the journalists detained in 2001 had been charged, tried or publicly accounted for.",
      "stage": "eliminate",
      "ladder_note": "Eritrea jailed at least nineteen journalists without charge, trial or public acknowledgment of their fate after suspending its constitution, and has not accounted for several of them in over two decades; no United States detention in the record has approached that duration.",
      "rsf": null,
      "era": "2000s",
      "granularity": "granular",
      "status": "in_effect",
      "case_count": 0,
      "summary": "Eritrea's government closed every private newspaper and jailed at least nineteen journalists, including Dawit Isaac of the paper Setit, without charge or trial in September 2001, after suspending the constitution. Several have never been publicly accounted for since.",
      "url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/2001-eritrea-jails-journalists-indefinitely"
    },
    {
      "slug": "1960-egypt-nasser-nationalizes-press",
      "title": "Egypt's Nasser government nationalizes every newspaper and magazine in the country",
      "occurred_on": "1960-05-24",
      "occurred_on_precision": "day",
      "country": "EG",
      "country_name": "Egypt",
      "continent": "africa",
      "jurisdiction": "EG",
      "level": "national",
      "tactic_primary": "funding_and_ownership_pressure",
      "tactics": [
        "funding_and_ownership_pressure",
        "outlet_licensing"
      ],
      "leader_slug": "gamal-abdel-nasser",
      "leader_name": "Gamal Abdel Nasser",
      "issue_of_the_day": "Nasser's government was consolidating state control over Egypt's economy and institutions in the years following the 1952 revolution, and extended that control to the press as an instrument of its nationalist program.",
      "outcome": "ongoing",
      "outcome_on": "1989-01-01",
      "outcome_note": "State ownership structures created by the 1960 decree, including the government-appointed leadership of major papers such as Al-Ahram, remained in place through the 1980s.",
      "stage": "silence",
      "ladder_note": null,
      "rsf": {
        "index": "RSF World Press Freedom Index",
        "year": 2026,
        "rank": 169,
        "of": 180,
        "label": "RSF 2026 rank: 169th of 180",
        "source_url": "https://rsf.org/en/index"
      },
      "era": "1960s",
      "granularity": "anchor",
      "status": "historical",
      "case_count": 0,
      "summary": "President Gamal Abdel Nasser's government issued a decree on May 24, 1960 placing every newspaper and magazine in Egypt under state ownership and management, with the government appointing editors and deciding content, ending private control of the country's press.",
      "url": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents/1960-egypt-nasser-nationalizes-press"
    }
  ],
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    "json": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents.json?continent=africa&outcome=ongoing",
    "md": "https://thewaronnews.com/incidents.md?continent=africa&outcome=ongoing"
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  "license": {
    "name": "CC BY 4.0",
    "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
  }
}