Ahmed Abba, 2018

“But I was freed and I am still a journalist.”

Cameroonian radio correspondent Ahmed Abba spoke these words in 2018 while finally accepting a Committee to Protect Journalists award announced the previous year. He had been arrested in 2015 after leaving a press briefing in Maroua, held without prompt access to counsel, questioned about contacts connected to Boko Haram, and convicted on terrorism-related charges. CPJ reported that he was later released. In his speech, Abba said the secret service had chained and tortured him and that a court had sentenced him to ten years. The short sentence separates what authorities did to him from the profession he continued to claim: imprisonment interrupted his work but did not redefine journalism as a crime.

The case raises a difficult issue in conflict reporting. Journalists may need contact with armed groups, displaced residents, security officials, aid workers, and frightened witnesses to explain a crisis accurately. Communication with a source is not proof of support for that source. Reporters should nevertheless keep careful notes, verify identities, use secure channels, and understand local laws that officials may interpret broadly. Editors can document the public-interest purpose of interviews and maintain legal contacts before an assignment begins. These measures cannot remove abuse of power, but they create a stronger record when reporting activity is falsely portrayed as complicity.

Coverage of terrorism prosecutions should be exact about charges, evidence, procedure, and changes on appeal. Labels such as terrorist, collaborator, or threat should be attributed rather than adopted as fact unless supported by verified evidence. A newsroom must also avoid publishing operational details that create immediate danger without adding meaningful public understanding. Accuracy requires reporting both genuine security risks and the ways national-security law can be used to suppress scrutiny. The same standard applies to statements from governments, armed organizations, and advocacy groups: every claim should be tested against documents, witnesses, and observable events.

Abba described a journalist’s role as identifying dangers and opportunities and bringing them to the public. That definition emphasizes service rather than defiance for its own sake. After a reporter is released, support should continue through medical care, trauma-informed counseling, legal assistance, secure equipment, and a realistic return-to-work plan. Colleagues can preserve unfinished reporting without pressuring the survivor to resume before they are ready. The words ‘still a journalist’ therefore carry institutional obligations. Press freedom is meaningful when a person can report without being criminalized, and when detention does not erase their archive, livelihood, or professional identity. Abba’s return reminds audiences that protecting reporters also protects the flow of carefully verified information from regions where fear, insurgency, and state power make independent observation especially necessary.