Authorities in Gabon have arrested two journalists, one French, the other Swiss, for posing as tourists. According to an official the two men were trying “to dig up a story on French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner,” who went before France’s parliament last week “to reject accusations made in a new book of having unethical ties to African regimes, particularly in Gabon.” But the question remains: Why are there laws forbidding journalists from posing as tourists or anything else save to be able to keep tabs on, intimidate, and otherwise prevent them from doing their jobs? As someone who might not be the most welcome guy among officials in some parts of Africa (hello, Zimbabwe!) I am especially alarmed that not wearing a sign saying “I am a professor currently operating in the capacity of what you might call a journalist” would subject me to arrest. Then again, in such countries, when officials want to detain you, they’ll detain you, niceties of the law notwithstanding.
