Joint statement of the Civil Society Organizations Reference Group (CSORG) and the National Civil Society Congress (NCSC) on the continued state harassment and intimidation of human rights organisations and the alleged deregistration of Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI), Haki Africa and the Agency for Peace and Development in the pretext of fighting terrorism.

Nearly 200 organisations from around the world have asked Nigeria’s new head of state to do everything in his power to bring back the girls captured and held in captivity for over a year now by the militant group Boko Haram. Read the letter .

President Kenyatta is steadily returning Kenya to authoritarianism. His government has tried to muzzle the judiciary and arm-twist County Governments. It has initiated repressive policy actions aimed at restricting the space of civil society, civil liberties, media freedom and independent critical voices.

In a heartless case of police brutality, a Nairobi officer shoots dead a teenage boy in cold blood in a slum as the boy pleads with him to spare his life. Human rights defenders in the area are demanding justice.

Expectations on President Muhammadu Buhari are many and very high. But he must straightaway tackle the problems of endemic corruption, insecurity and the power crisis.

The organisations say that African governments and international donors support to African agriculture increasingly focuses on the extension of corporate led food and agricultural systems to the detriment of small-scale food producers, who produce 70% of the food in Africa. Read the full statement .

The international conference in Barbados hopes to bring together scholars/researchers, activists and policy makers to interrogate the philosophical, political, socio-cultural and economic thoughts and legacies of these Africanists.

For too long, Monsanto has been the benefactor of corporate subsidies and political favoritism. Organic and small farmers suffer losses while Monsanto continues to forge its monopoly over the world’s food supply, including exclusive patenting rights over seeds and genetic makeup.

If the economic and human rights situation in Ethiopia is really as rosy as it is painted by the EPRDF government, how come hundreds of thousands of its youthful population are risking their lives to flee the country and die in the deserts of the Sahara, Sinai and Arabia, beheaded by fundamentalist lunatics in Libya and killed in South Africa?