US-based Bloggers Detained in Nigeria

Emeka Siwe and Jonathan Elandu, two U.S. bloggers who cover African politics, have been detained in Nigeria apparently without charge. Read the full story at Africasia…

A US journalist’s rights group said on Friday that Nigeria is holding a US-based blogger without charge, in the second such incident in two weeks.

Emmanuel Emeka Asiwe, editor of the Arlington, Massachusetts-based HuhuOnline website, which focuses on Nigerian politics, was arrested Tuesday at the Abuja airport, and has been “held incommunicado and without charge seen since,” according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in New York.

Asiwe is being “questioned over matters of national security,” said Nigerian State Security Service (SSS) spokesman Kenechukwu Onyeogu.

CPJ said the Nigerian government has cracked down on foreign-based Nigerian political websites ever since photos of President Umaru Yar’Adua’s teenage son, Musa, posing with an AK-47 assault rifle and holding cash, were published on a popular news blog.

“We are concerned that Nigerian authorities are detaining journalists in an attempt to intimidate foreign-based online journalists from reporting on Nigeria,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes.