Pius Njawe and the Paris African leaders' summit

The accidental death in the U.S. of Pius Njawe, the crusading editor of Cameroon, has come as a shock to all press freedom advocates.
Pius had become the symbol of Africans’ fight for independent reporting, the kind of reporting that most Francophone African leaders invited at the French-Francophone Africa summit currently held in Paris do not really appreciate.
In Brussels Pius was a frequent visitor. During his imprisonment he had been supported by a wide and active coalition of publishers, journalists and students that had been seduced by his energy, courage and gentle ways.
To know more about the circumstances of his death and about the context of the press freedom challenges in Francophone Africa, please read Rob Mahoney’s blog on www.cpj.org as well as the letter sent by a coalition of press freedom groups to the African leaders and their host Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris. Both texts insist in particular on the new ways African chiefs of state have been able to use “soft” censorship tools to marginalize dissenting voices.