During the 89th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHRP), held in Dakar, Senegal, ARTICLE 19 West Africa and ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa delivered an oral statement on the state of freedom of expression, access to information, and the environment for civic space across the continent.
The statement was part of the regional offices’ extensive work at the ACHRP, which included leading on and participating in events on access to information; strengthening protection for women human rights defenders; media regulation, domestic law, and international commitments; xenophobia; and as part of the United Against Torture Consortium.
‘Over the past year, the region has witnessed a further, deeply concerning convergence of contested and violent elections, unconstitutional or extra-constitutional seizures of power, limitation on digital freedoms, and entrenched repression of the press and civil society’, the statement reads.
The address acknowledges ‘a small number of encouraging developments’, including the Commission’s Resolution on elections, The Gambia’s ratification, in 2026, of the African Union Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls, the first State to do so since the Convention’s adoption in February 2025, and Senegal’s adoption of a law on access to information.
‘Despite these positive signals, freedom of expression and access to information across West and Eastern Africa remain under sustained assault, with the Alliance of Sahel States /AES (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger), Nigeria, and Guinea presenting some of the most alarming patterns on the continent,’ the statement says.