Contributors

Are you a writer, filmmaker, artist, academic, podcaster and/or free expression/human rights activist? Are you interested in contributing content to this platform or just sharing an idea for development? Please contact us!

Admire Mare

Admire Mare is an Associate Professor and Deputy Head in the Department of Communication at the Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek, Namibia. He is also a Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Humanities. His research interests include analyzing the complex intersection between technology and society, digital journalism, social media and politics, media and democracy, media and conflict and the role of artificial intelligence in newsrooms. He currently leads the international research project ‘Social Media, Misinformation and Elections in Kenya and Zimbabwe’ (SoMeKeZi) funded by the Social Science Research Council (2019-2021). He is also the co-author of ‘Participatory Journalism in Africa Digital News Engagement and User Agency in the South’ (New York: Routledge, 2021 with Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara). He is also the co-editor of ‘Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding in Africa: Empirical and Conceptual Considerations’ (London: Routledge, 2021 with Jacinta Maweu).

Alain Modoux

Alain Modoux, former Assistant Director-General of UNESCO for Freedom of Expression, Democracy and Peace, recalls how the diplomatic process he personally steered for two and a half years led the United Nations General Assembly to proclaim 3 May "World Press Freedom Day". Twenty years later, he was awarded UNESCO's Taïno Medal for his "outstanding contribution" to the creation of this Day.

Alphonce Shiundu

Alphonce Shiundu is Africa Check’s country editor in Kenya.

Annie Game

Annie Game is the Executive Director of IFEX, a global network that promotes and defends freedom of expression and information as a fundamental human right. IFEX is a nexus for free expression expertise contributed by over 120 member-organisations, spanning 90 countries and committed to collaboration and transformative advocacy.

Banjo Damilola

Banjo Damilola is an investigative journalist from Nigeria. She reports on education, health, and social justice. She has carried out some of the most daunting investigations in Nigeria. She investigated the killings and kidnappings in Zamfara State. Her piece reverberated and led to a nationwide protest, demanding improved security in the region. She also investigated the corruption in the justice system, documented the malfeasance in the Nigeria Police Force, the court, and the Prison Service. Banjo started her career as a beat reporter at Sahara Reporters, and worked briefly at the BBC until January 2021 when she started a master’s degree at Columbia Journalism School.

Bertha Tobias

Bertha Tobias is a 20-year old International Relations and Economics undergraduate student. She currently serves as Namibia's Youth Charter Representative for the Office of the African Union Youth Envoy. A fellow of the Apolitical Academy, she has served at the frontlines of #ShutItAllDown, a Namibian national protest movement against sexual violence with an estimated combined social and non-social reach of 11 million. Her youth professional development programme has been awarded the "Go Make A Difference grant."

Brian Kagoro

Brian Kagoro is a Pan Africanist and a constitutional and economic relations lawyer.

Dr. Phillip Santos

Dr. Phillip Santos is a Senior Lecturer in the Informatics, Journalism and Media Technology Department at the Namibia University of Science and Technology. His research interests are in the areas of mediated rhetoric and argumentation, political communication, the sociology of digital media, transformations in mediation and journalism practice, as well as the intersection between mediation and such social issues as social memory, identity, development, gender, inequality.

Edetaen Ojo

Edetaen Ojo is the Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda, a Freedom of Expression organisation in Nigeria.

Eugene Dube

Eugene Dube is the editor of Swati Newsweek, an online publication. He is currently living in exile in South Africa.

Farhia M. Kheyre

Farhia Mohamed Kheyre is a journalist and chairperson of Somali Women Journalists Organization (SWJO)

Fatima el Issawi

Dr Fatima el Issawi is a Reader in Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Essex and Senior Visiting Fellow Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa |London School of Economics & Political Science.

Fernando Goncalves

Fernando Gonçalves is Editor of Mozambique’s leading weekly newspaper, Savanna. He is also the chairperson of the Mozambican chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA Mozambique).

Frederic Musisi

Frederic Musisi is a multi-media journalist, currently working as the investigations/Special Projects reporter at the Nation Media Group Ugandan subsidiaries; Nation Television (NTV), and Daily Monitor, the second largest newspaper in the country. He has 12 years’ experience covering a diverse range of topics from foreign affairs, politics, oil & gas, business and finance, environment, and public affairs. His work has been [re] published in, especially Nation Media Group publications in Tanzania and Kenya, and quoted in several international publications. He cut his teeth in journalism as a student at university, starting out at the bi-weekly Observer newspaper before crossing over to Daily Monitor. He has written for several local, regional and international publications including Associated Press.

Frederico Links

Frederico Links is a research associate with the Institute for Public Policy Re-search (IPPR) in Namibia since 2009. His focus is on corruption, democracy and elections, party political finance, empowerment policies, Internet governance, and pub-lic procurement. Links has previously worked as a journalist for a range of Na-mibian newspapers and is a former editor of Insight Namibia magazine. He is a co-founder and current chairperson of ACTION Namibia which campaigns for greater ATI in Namibia. He is also co-founder of the Namibia Internet Gover-nance Forum (NamIGF) and first chairperson of the NamIGF working group.

Gbenga Sesan

Gbenga Sesan is a social entrepreneur who delivers Information and communications technology to the under served. He has had a career in the application of Information and Communication Technologies for Development – for individuals, institutions, nation-states, regional entities and the international community.

Gilbert Sendugwa

Gilbert Sendugwa is the executive director of Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC), the largest and leading network of CSOs promoting the right to information, transparency and accountability across Africa. In 2019 he participated in a global campaign for UNGA resolution proclaiming September 28th as the International day for Universal Access to Information. He has twice been recognised by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights for outstanding work in supporting the work of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information Africa. Gilbert has promoted and overseen campaigns for adoption and implementation of access to information across sectors such as health, education, natural resources, public contracting, among others. In 2017, under his leadership, AFIC was recognised by Uganda’s Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) for its outstanding work in promoting open contracting in Africa.

Golden Matonga

Golden Matonga is a Malawian journalist working for Malawi’s Nation Publications Limited and writes for a string of international outlets including Mail&Guardian and Financial Times.

Graham Hopwood

Graham Hopwood is the Executive Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) in Windhoek, Namibia.

Guilherme Canela

Guilherme Canela holds the position of chief of the section of Freedom of Expression and Safety of Journalists at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Gwen Lister

Gwen Lister is an award-winning Namibian journalist, publisher, anti-apartheid and press freedom activist. She was the Chairperson of the Unesco-sponsored Windhoek conference on media in Africa in May 1990 which culminated in the adoption of the Windhoek Declaration on a Free, Independent and Pluralistic African Media, and which in turn led to the UN General Assembly declaring May 3 each year as International Press Freedom Day.

Henok Fente

For almost 2 decades, Ethiopian journalist, Henok Fente, has worked as an editor, media, creator and educator along with managing broadcasts for VOA and BBC. He is the founder and executive director of MERSA Media Institute—a non-profit think tank and a member of Ethiopia’s Media Law Working Group - a group tasked to review and draft media legislation.

Henry O. Maina

Henry O. Maina is a Chevening Scholar and renowned freedom of expression advocate with over 20 years experience on the continent. He is a sitting Commissioner, Media Complaints Commission in Kenya serving his second 3-year term. He has taught media law and media ethics at Multimedia University of Kenya and University of Nairobi for the last 5 years. He is the immediate former Regional Director, ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa.

Hopewell Rugoho-Chin'ono

Hopewell Rugoho-Chin'ono is a Zimbabwean documentary film maker and journalist. He has worked as ITV News Africa Field Producer and The New York Times Zimbabwe foreign correspondent. In 2020, Hopewell amplified reports on alleged Covid-19 procurement fraud within the health ministry, which led to the arrest and sacking of Health Minister Obadiah Moyo. It was President Emmerson Mnangagwa who fired Obadiah in July for "inappropriate conduct" over the USD60 million medicines supply scandal. On July 20, 2020, Hopewell was arrested and charged with inciting public violence. He was freed in September on bail, but arrested again in November 2020 and charged with obstructing justice and contempt of court for a tweet about the court outcome of a gold smuggling scandal. Chin’ono was released on bail on January 27, 2021 after spending three weeks in prison. He expressed concern about the COVID-19 pandemic in the overcrowded Chikurubi Prison and accused the government of harassment for arresting him three times in five months.

IFEX

IFEX, formerly International Freedom of Expression Exchange, is a global network of more than 119 independent non-governmental organisations that work at a local, national, regional, or international level to defend and promote freedom of expression as a human right. The IFEX Africa Brief is a monthly roundup of the major free expression developments on the continent in a given month.

ispeak

The iSPEAK platform acts as a collective space for advocacy on media freedom, artistic freedom, academic freedom, the right to protest, the right to association and, importantly, access to information which is integral to all these rights. Here we’ll interrogate existing narratives on free expression issues from different perspectives; talk about representation and inclusion in and through the media – still a powerful agenda setter with enormous capacity to influence the way we perceive ourselves and the world around us. This platform will host discussions, exhibitions, undertake and present research on topical issues, facilitate calls to action and joint advocacy to advance the right to free expression in all its dimensions in the most inclusive manner possible.

Jamesina E. King

Jamesina Essie Leonora King is a Sierra Leonean jurist and a Commissioner of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. She is currently the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa and Country Rapporteur for Eritrea, Namibia, Somalia, The Gambia, and Zimbabwe.[1] She was the first Sierra Leonean to be sworn in as a Commissioner of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights.[2] Previously, she was the first Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone, and was a Commissioner in the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone from 1996 to 2016

Jessica Uiras

Jessica Mundie Uiras holds the position of Programme Coordinator at the Namibia Media Trust (NMT), where she works to promote a conducive environment where a free media can work sustainably to contribute to the building of inclusive societies. In line with her work at the NMT, she is the founder of the Eagles Foundation and several other initiatives that promote social inclusion of those marginalised and driven to the fringes of our society.

Juliet Nanfuka

Juliet has a background in journalism and has worked in the fields of communications strategy, publicity, branding and market research across East and Southern Africa. A lot of her work has involved the exploration of avenues for African development through the intersection of heritage, rights and digital technologies. She has utilised these skills in the advocacy of rights including for access to medication and for online rights. More recently she explores connections between online rights and social innovation in Africa. She holds a Bjourn with specialisation in Digital Media (Rhodes University, South Africa) and a Post Graduate Certificate in Social Innovation Management (Amani Institute, Kenya).

Justine Limpitlaw

Justine Limpitlaw - BA LLB (Wits) LLM (Yale) - is an independent communications law consultant and a Visiting Adjunct Professor with the LINK Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand. She specialises in media, electronic communications and space and satellite law. Justine recently published the three-volume second edition of the Media Law Handbook for Southern Africa and is also the author of the two-volume Media Law Handbook for Eastern Africa which include extensive analysis of broadcasting and online regulatory environments.

Kevin Mwachiro

Kevin Mwachiro is a writer, journalist, podcaster and queer activist.

Khadija Patel

Khadija Patel is a South African investigative journalist with publications for international media houses Sky News, Al Jazeera, Quartz, BBC World News and The Guardian. Khadija is currently the vice-chairperson of the International Press Institute and the former Editor-in-chief of the Mail & Guardian.

Lesle Jansen

Lesle Jansen is a South African lawyer, from the Khoikhoi community, who specializes in indigenous peoples rights and Access and Benefit-sharing in the context of the Nagoya Protocol. She was one of the lawyers on the Rooibos case resulting in the first industry-wide benefit sharing agreement.

Levi Kabwato

Levi Kabwato is a journalist, commentator and thought leader. He is also a published author.

Makhosi Sibanda

Makhosi Sibanda is a Zimbabwean journalist, media trainer and consultant. He presently serves as the Community Engagement Advisor at Internews Network

Mduduzi Mathuthu

Mduduzi Mathuthu is the editor of ZimLive.com

Michael D. Aggrey

Michael D. Aggrey is a media activist and a management specialist, with over eight years of professional experience in the media industry in South Sudan. He is currently the Executive Director of Association for Media Development in South Sudan (AMDISS).

Mulatu A. Moges

Mulatu Alemayehu Moges (PhD) is an Assistant professor of Journalism and Communication at Addis Ababa University.

Naseem Tarawnah

Naseem Tarawnah is an independent writer and editor whose work focuses on the intersection of freedom of expression and digital rights in the Middle East and North Africa region. As a regional editor for IFEX, he has covered issues including online censorship and how authoritarian states restrict access to information and control the online civic space. The writer behind the Jordanian blog The Black Iris, he is also a co-founder of the Jordanian independent media organization and online magazine 7iber, and the digital rights organisation Akhbarek, which monitors how women’s online free expression are being threatened in the Arab region. He has also worked extensively with civil society organisations in the region to help develop communication strategies designed to bring community voices to the forefront.

Natasha Fuyane

Natasha Fuyane is a writer and podcaster, among other things. She is a Zimbabwean living in the United Kingdom. She is passionate about amplifying African diaspora issues and creating spaces for conversations. Natasha (Nat) and Xolie (Xolie Ncube) are the voices behind Girl In Skies podcast based in the UK. Find the Girl In Skies podcast on SoundCloud, YouTube or Google Podcasts.

Nhlanhla Ngwenya

Nhlanhla Ngwenya is a Communications and Media specialist and a passionate human rights activist, having been involved in a number of advocacy campaigns to promote and defend freedom of expression in the Southern African region.

Nkechi Ilochi-Kanny

Nkechi Ilochi-Kanny, is a feminist, social justice, and gender advocate with 19 years of programming and leadership experience. She is currently the Manager of Women’s Rights Programme in ActionAid Nigeria (AAN) where she provides strategic leadership in the delivery of AAN’s commitment to gender equality programmes in Nigeria.

Norah Appolus

Norah Appolus is a seasoned journalist with more than 40 years' experience in the broadcasting industry. She has worked with a number of broadcasters: Radio-Television Algerie; Radio France International and the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation. She has trained various broadcasters including Television Malawi. Ms. Appolus is now a Training Consultant.

Obialunamma Omekedo

Obialunamma Efemena Omekedo, is a young feminist creative and freelance writer.

Reyhana Masters

Reyhana Masters is a passionate advocate for media freedom and freedom of expression. She uses her grounding in journalism to weave compelling stories to sketch the African context and challenge regressive narratives on freedom of expression and policy issues on the continent.

Saikou Jammeh

Saikou Jammeh is a Gambian journalist and former Secretary General of the Gambia Press Union. He currently works as the Executive Director of Open Media Centre, a non-profit media organisation that specialises in investigative journalism.

Samba D. Badji

Samba Dialimpa Badji is a Senegalese journalist with 20 years of experience in print, radio and online journalism. He has worked for several media outlets in Senegal, as well as for the BBC and Radio France Internationale. He is currently the editor of Africa Check, a fact-checking nonprofit based in Dakar.

Samira Sabou

Samira Sabou is an award-winning investigative journalist, blogger and media trainer from Niger. She is the president of the Niger Bloggers for Active Citizenship Association (ABCA). She is also the administrator of the Information, Economic and Social Development Information Magazine (MIDES).

Sarah Helen Chiumbu

Sarah Helen Chiumbu is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication, University of Johannesburg (the UJ). Before joining the UJ, she was a Senior Research Specialist in the Human and Social Development Research Programme at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). Prior to that she spent 7 years at the University of Witwatersrand where she was a senior lecturer in media and communication studies. She holds a PhD and MA in media studies from the University Of Oslo, Norway. Her research interests include media, democracy and citizenship, new and alternative media, policy studies, social movements, African political thought, decolonial and postcolonial theories.

Tomiwa Ilori

Tomiwa Ilori is a doctoral researcher at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. He also works as a researcher at the Expression, Information and Digital Rights Unit at the Centre.

Vaishna Roy

Vaishna Roy is an award-winning journalist and Associate Editor with The Hindu.

Victor Mabutho

Victor Mabutho is a freelance journalist and social media consultant based in Harare, Zimbabwe. He has a keen interest in Africa and has researched and published on a broad spectrum of issues affecting the continent, including politics, freedom of expression, elections and tech.

Wanja P. Njuguna

Dr Wanja P. Njuguna is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Com¬munication at the Namibia University of Science and Technology. Fol¬low her on @wanjasnotebook. Read her blog on http://wanjasnotebook. blogspot.com!

Zenzele Ndebele

Zenzele Ndebele is a journalist, entrepreneur, Founder/Director of the Centre for Innovation and technology (CITE), and a member of the Matabeleland Collective, a network of Civil Society Organisations and Churches based in Bulawayo which aims to tackle issues related to freedom of expression.

Zoe Titus

Zoé Titus is the Editor of the iSPEAK platform. She is passionate about the media and its potential to make a positive and profound change on the lives of people. She has dedicated the last 26 years of her life to advance media freedom and development in southern Africa in various dimensions – as a former regional director of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and presently as Director of the Namibia Media Trust (NMT). Titus presently serves as chairperson of the African Platform on Access to Information and the Global Forum for Media Development.