The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by attacks on radio stations in the Comoros in the run-up to May 14 federal elections in the Indian Ocean state. Unidentified assailants armed with machetes stormed two radio stations on the island of Grande Comore on May 5, forcing them off the air for 24 hours. The army shut down a radio station on the island of Mohéli more than a week ago, and it has not resumed broadcasting, local journalists told CPJ. Attackers ransacked Radio Ngazidja, the official station of the semi-autonomous government of Grande Comore, and Moroni FM, a private station that supports the federal government.

Human rights activists on the Comoran island of Anjouan have accused the government of riding roughshod over basic civil liberties, which has contributed to growing hostility between the state and the local population. The latest incident occurred in early March, when ongoing public protests over a teachers' strike left two high school students dead, amid allegations of heavy-handed police conduct. In what it claimed were legitimate concerns over national security, authorities on the tiny island imposed an immediate curfew in the capital, Mutsamudu.