Killings, harassment or jailing of journalists have risen to an alarming level across Africa and could undermine the continent's drive for better governance, foreign media groups said. "In the past few months journalists working in Africa have been charged with espionage, murdered, harassed by government officials, and jailed for defamation and for publishing 'false news'," said a joint statement by the Foreign Correspondents' Association of Southern Africa and its East African counterpart.