links: French http://www.lemessager.net/category/piusnjawe/
- Deutsch: Pius Njawe: Tod eines Pioniers für die Pressefreiheit in Afrika
http://www.afrikanet.info/menu/diaspora/datum/2010/07/16/pius-njawe-tod…
Der Tod des Journalisten Njawé, ein Pionier der privaten Presse in Kamerun
Jaunde (AFP) - 13/07/2010 08.55
http://afri-russ-archiv.blog.de/2010/07/16/kamerun-tod-der-ikone-des-jo…
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Foto: Pius Njawe, above in 2001, was arrested more than 100 times for his journalism work.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/14/AR20100…
By Adam Bernstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Pius Njawe, an African journalist who braved arrest more than 100 times for reporting on corruption and other sensitive topics and gained international attention as a relentless advocate of press freedom, died July 12 in a car accident near Norfolk. He was 53.
The Cameroon native was among the most defiant independent editors and publishers in Western Africa, a region known for spawning autocratic regimes that often enforce censorship through violent intimidation.
He was reportedly in the United States to attend a forum in Washington sponsored by a Cameroonian pro-democracy advocacy group. He was traveling between Washington and the Tidewater region to visit relatives when he died.
A Virginia State Police spokesman said Mr. Njawe was a front-seat passenger in a car heading south on Interstate 664 in Chesapeake when the vehicle apparently stopped in the travel lane and was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer. The cause of the accident remains under investigation.
In 2000, the Austria-based International Press Institute listed Mr. Njawe among its 50 world press freedom heroes of the past half-century. The institute called Mr. Njawe "Cameroon's most beleaguered journalist and one of Africa's most courageous fighters for press freedom."
Mr. Njawe started Cameroon's first independent newspaper, Le Messager (The Messenger), in 1979 when he was 22. The publication has targeted alleged abuses by the government of President Paul Biya, who has been in power since 1982.
In particular, Mr. Njawe cast a critical eye on how the country's substantial oil revenues were being pocketed by wealthy supporters of the president. He directed news coverage that questioned the finances of ranking police officials and members of the National Assembly.
The government confiscated issues of Le Messager and shuttered the newspaper's offices, headquartered in the city of Douala. Mr. Njawe received death threats, prompting him to relocate his family for a year in the Western African nation of Benin. On his return, in 1993, he started a press freedom organization in Cameroon, but he continued to be harassed.
Despite the official abolition of press censorship in 1996, Mr. Njawe was arrested the next year after reporting that Biya had collapsed while watching a soccer match. Mr. Njawe said he based his information on three witnesses, but he was charged with "spreading false news," a form of subversion.
He received a two-year sentence, later reduced to 10 months after a presidential pardon following international condemnation. He said the prison governor warned him not to chance solitary confinement by continuing to write.
"To have the privilege of writing taken away from you overnight feels like being a victim of a crime," he later wrote. "I immediately started to think about what my long days would be like in a cell I was sharing with more than 150 detainees, almost all of them crooks, if I could not write. So I decided to defy the governor's ban by stepping up my bi-weekly column, Le Bloc-notes du bagnard (the Convict's Notebook), in my newspaper, Le Messager."
Pius Noumeni Njawe was born March 4, 1957, in Babouantou, Cameroon. As a young reporter, he provoked authorities with unauthorized articles critical of the country's education system. Some landed him in jail.
While he had grown used to meager conditions behind bars -- the concrete floors, the handful of cornmeal for daily rations -- he said the 10 months he spent imprisoned in 1998 were harrowing. He said his wife, Jane, who was nine months pregnant, was beaten by guards when she brought him food. The injuries she suffered caused their daughter to be stillborn.
In 2002, Jane died in a two-car accident in Cameroon. Mr. Njawe formed an organization dedicated to promoting traffic safety in Cameroon. They had five children, but a complete list of survivors could not be confirmed.
In addition to starting Le Messager, Mr. Njawe also founded a satirical publication, Le Messager Popoli. He was a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a Washington-based global network of reporters who collaborate on cross-border investigative stories.
A month before his death, he told an interviewer for the International Press Institute: "A word can be more powerful than a weapon, and I believe that with the word . . . we can build a better world and make happier people. So, why give up while duty still calls? No one will silence me, except the Lord, before I achieve what I consider as a mission in my native country, in Africa and, why not, in the world."
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Pius Njawe dies in car accident
Posted by Miller on July 13, 2010
The “right journalism” is a hard pill to swallow. The journalists, who fight for the sole cause of digging into reality behind the curtains of foggy illusions and paradoxes of falsehood, put themselves on the dangerous track which doesn’t let them take even a single sigh of relief in their life. However, their motto becomes their oxygen and it changes the definition of “life” for them.
Pius Njawe, the journalist who hated those people in power loved to throw dust in the eyes of public and invested his life for the unveiling and propagation of truth, has died in a sad car accident in Norfolk, USA on Monday. He was 54 years old. The irony of fate is that her wife also died in a car accident few years back.
Pius Njawe was the publication director of Le Messager which is considered as one of the top newspapers in Cameroon. He was on his car and was going to meet his children who resided on a nearby location from the place of accident. A tractor trailer badly hit the car and, consequently, Pius Njawe could not survive due to severe injuries. He was travelling at a pretty high speed on a busy road and then brutally hit by a huge tractor trailer. He died on the spot without letting paramedics to shift him to a nearby hospital.
Quite recently, the 30th anniversary of his newspaper was celebrated. Pius Njawe always faced enormous hardship throughout his career. As he always broke into hidden realities and unmasked many scandals and state crimes, the political elite never let him breathe comfortably throughout his career.
Due to his style of revealing journalism, he was imprisoned by the Cameroon Government many times. He had a long history of imprisonment as he was arrested for 126 times in last 30 years of his career. He invested his life for the freedom of press and was considered as the one who led from the front for this sacred cause. He was just 19 when he was arrested for the first time for publishing the story of an oil discovery in Cameroon.
Pius Njawe
Pius Njawe
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http://timesofindia.hotklix.com/Hotklix/link/News/India/Pius-Njawe-dies…
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Remembering Pius: The devastation of his death
By Kim Brice/Guest Blogger
Pius Njawé (Le Messager)
Pius Njawé (Le Messager)
It’s 7:50 a.m. I’m up early—lots of work to finish today. I check my e-mail. There’s a message from CPJ’s Lauren Wolfe, who I don’t know. The opening line reads: “I’m not sure if you heard that Pius Njawé was killed in a car crash yesterday in Virginia. Anne Nelson told us you worked closely with him when he was chosen for the IPFA in 1991.”
I squint at the screen as if my eyes had deceived me. No, I’m, reading it right. Pius died in a car crash. He was 53.
Flash back to three years ago when I was driving through Cameroon on an assignment for the Rainforest Foundation. The main cross-country highway was lined every few miles with signs that read something like “Driving can kill, slow down.” I asked my co-passengers about the signs. “Oh, have you heard of Pius Njawe? His wife was killed in a car accident and he set up an organization called Justice and rallied the government to get these signs put up.” Yes, I had heard of Pius, the president of the Free Media Group, which publishes Cameroon’s leading independent daily Le Messager. I wrote to him to send my (very belated) condolences and to congratulate him on his action.
I’m back to my e-mail screen. I try to find my e-mail to him and his response. I can’t. My mind wanders. I am disgusted. His death is just too ironically devastating for words.
I re-focus. I re-read Lauren’s e-mail. I take a deep breath. I repeat Pius’s name in my head. I run downstairs. I have to find that book. Damn, I can’t find it! I’m ashamed then frantic. I know I have it here somewhere. It has traveled three continents. It’s a talisman of sorts. Flashback. It’s 1993. I am leaving CPJ. I write to all my contacts and announce my departure. A few weeks later I receive a package at my home. It’s from Pius. It’s a book called Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness). On the opening page, he thanks me for all the work I did on his behalf. For my compassion. He says he admires the independent, strong women that I am.
Did I ever thank Pius and tell him how much receiving that book and his words meant to me?
Bonjour Tristesse!
Kim Brice worked at CPJ from 1988 to 1993. She is a freelance consultant working on media freedom and other political and social rights issues.
http://cpj.org/blog/2010/07/remembering-pius-the-devastation-of-his-dea…
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Cameroon's Ace Journalist ,Pius Njawe ,Dies in Road Accident in USA
By Christopher Ambe Shu
Pius Njawe,Cameroonian front line journalist and publisher of the daily ,Le Messager, is no more.
He died at the age of 53 in a ghastly road accident in the USA last night at 11 pm. He was known to be one of the most courageous press freedom fighters in Cameroon.He founded Le Messager in 1979.
Njawe(pictured) traveled to the USA since July 9 to attend a political forum by Cameroonians in the Diaspora billed for July 10 in Washington DC.
A speeding truck reportedly crushed them as his driver stopped by the road side and was trying to replace a punctured tyre of the vehicle in which they were driving in a road in Virginia.
The said driver(a certain Eric) is said to be in a critical condition in hospital while Pius Njawe died.
Noted for his sharp pen and criticism of the Biya regime,Mr Njawe has been arrested and imprisoned more than 100 times in his journalistic practice .
In 1990, he published an "Open Letter" to President Biya, which led to his arrest.
In 1998, he was sentenced to two years in prison because his newspaper carried an article about President Paul Biya's health that suggested he had a heart condition. The sentence for publishing this article was later reduced and, due to pressure from Human Rights groups, he was pardoned after almost a year in prison.
His exemplary practice of journalism and the defense of press freedom earned him several international awards: In 1991 he received CPJ International Press Freedom Awards and 1993 the World Association of Newspapers' Golden Pen of Freedom Award
Born on March 4,1957 in Babouantou in Haut-Nkam Diviison of the West Region of Cameroon,Pius Njawe joined the journalism profession while a teenager(19)
It should be noted that Njawe's wife, Jane, had years back died as a result of a road accident.
Posted by Christoper Ambe Shu on Tuesday, July 13, 2010
http://recorderline.blogspot.com/2010/07/cameroons-ace-journalist-pius-…