[3] An opposition-backed newspaper, Le Renouveau,[4] ceased operations in 2007 after publishing an article accusing President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh[5]'s brother-in-law (the former governor of the Central Bank of Djibouti, Djama Haid) of accepting bribes.
[6] There are also several weekly or monthly publications published by opposition parties, though they are often opinion and politically based information rather than fact-based news.
Most notable was the case of two journalists for La Voix de Djibouti, Farah Abadid Heldid and Houssein Robleh Dabar.
[10] Heldid and Dabar were originally arrested without a warrant in February of that year, and were held for four months, during which period the presidential election occurred.
The editor, Maydaneh Abdallah Okieh, was imprisoned for failing to comply with a court order relating to his earlier arrests for "defaming a police officer".
[14] Another reporter from La Voix, Mohamed Ibrahim Waiss, was arrested and beaten by police while covering an opposition party rally in August 2014.
[15] In January 2016, four months in advance of presidential elections, Djibouti's security service detained two Djiboutian journalists and held them without charge.
[17] His interrogators forced him to sign a statement and to turn over his password to his Facebook account so that members of the security services could use it to make posts that insulted the country's opposition, according to the France-based press group.
Specifically, it referred to how Guelleh's regime was "harassing, abusing, and detaining government critics; denying the population access to independent sources of information; and restricting the freedom of speech and assembly.