The Gambia’s Hidden History: How A Tiny River Basin Influenced Colonial Trade And Slavery

A mural at a slave house on Janjanbureh Island, once known as Georgetown, in The Gambia. Peter van der Sluijs/Wikimedia Commons

BY PAPA CHERIF BERTRAND BASSENE

SENIOR LECTURER, UNIVERSITE

CHEIKH ANTA DIOP DE DAKAR

The Gambia is often portrayed as little more than a geographical oddity, a strip of land engulfed by its much larger neighbour Senegal. It was once the centre of Senegambia, administered by Britain between 1765 and 1779. But there is another way of looking at it which reveals its importance and adds to current reflections on reparations for slavery.

Pape Chérif Bertrand Bassène has studied the history of The Gambia and southern Senegal. He argues that British and Portuguese sources point to the existence of “Sierragambia” – a dynamic Mande-Atlantic connection and maritime corridor extending from the Gambia River basin, through the Casamance and Cacheu networks, down to the Sierra Leone River estuary, which later became the Abolitionist Laboratory Loop.

This independent coastal region played a decisive role in the Atlantic’s political, commercial and anti-slavery dynamics. Here, French-British rivalries intersected with African political agency long before the abolition of the slave trade. Whether through strategic alliances or fierce resistance, Bassène argues, African societies played an active, structuring role in transforming the Atlantic system into a network of exchange. We asked him to fill in the details.

How did you go about your research?

My research draws on two sets of European archives: British archives on The Gambia, and Portuguese sources on The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. I analysed them alongside the historiography of Senegambia rather than in isolation.

Rather than treating these records as objective accounts, I approached them as geopolitical narratives. These require critical interpretation, informed by insights from historical linguistics; by analysing Atlantic, Mande, and Bak languages, I trace the etymologies, shifting meanings, and social realities hidden behind European denominations and colonial administrative categories.

These sources help reveal how coastal trading networks developed. They also show how waterways were controlled by “Banhüns” (Baynunks) or “grumetes/gourmets”. Europeans used these terms for the local intermediaries who connected them to the Atlantic slave trade.

The sources show African political structures remained strong and were able to negotiate, resist, or exploit imperial rivalries.

What was the crisis between the French and British colonial forces all about?

Between 1779 and 1785, “Sierragambia” was a space where Franco-British rivalries intersected with African political agency, before the abolition of the slave trade.

In 1779, French forces destroyed Fort James on the Gambia River, ending Britain’s Province of Senegambia. But the French administration could not establish lasting control. British ships quickly returned and resumed their operations.

This rivalry reached its peak in October 1780. The French naval warship Le Sénégal boarded four English vessels at the mouth of the river. Britain responded quickly.

On 2 November 1780, the ship HMS Zephyr, supported by the privateer Polly (a civilian vessel), attacked the French ship. Twelve French sailors were killed and 28 wounded. The British lost only two men. Le Sénégal was captured and taken to Gorée, the slave trading island. It exploded shortly afterwards.

What role did Gambian communities play?

Portuguese sources describe precolonial Casamance in today’s Senegal as a territory fiercely guarded by coastal societies. There was no easy access. Europeans had to pass through the Banhuns-Grumetes, intermediaries from local communities, and Portuguese “lançados” (exiles). These various actors controlled the backwaters, filtered trade flows, and dictated the terms of barter.

The 1780 episode was shaped by an African initiative, a strategic alliance between British sailors and the Joola people of Fogni (the southern part of the Gambia River). Trapped along the river, the British sailors secured logistical and military support from the Joola. Rather than a victory decided purely by British maritime superiority, the capture of the ship Le Sénégal was engineered by a local African alliance that stripped the French of mobility and logistics. Africans created the tactical conditions that made British interception possible.

Coastal communities refused to supply the French. They harassed French rowboats, and disrupted the slave trade. On the north bank, the Niuminkés generally supported France. On the south bank, the Fogni communities allied with Britain. Their actions helped shape the territorial status quo ratified by the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

Although this treaty kept Albréda north of the river under the French flag, Paris had no real control over the river.

The agreement brought only a temporary pause to the conflict between the French and the British. It continued for decades.

How did this play out in the slave trade?

After losing its American colonies, Britain realigned its economic priorities. As it became an industrial power, it used the abolitionist movement as a tool to weaken its economic rivals. Sierragambia proved fertile ground for this project. Britain had already built strong ties with local communities.

The founding of Bathurst (present day Banjul, the capital of The Gambia) in 1816 should not be seen just as colonialism imposed from the outside. It was, rather, a legal formalisation of a preexisting political autonomy.

The colonial order that took shape in the 19th century grew out of forms of local autonomy that coastal communities had built during the slave trade era.

Even though the Barra Fort on the north bank of the Gambia River served to protect trade routes, the southern region became a space of emancipation, dissent and social change.

Freed captives, coastal communities and local authorities came together to strengthen their room for manoeuvre in the face of European powers. The Gambia developed a political identity distinct from its neighbours.

Further south of Banjul, the French attempted to replicate this model by planning to create a “village of freedom” on the Carabane island.

What does this tell us about reparations?

As debates over the memory of the Atlantic slave trade gather pace, calls for reparations are growing louder.

Yet a crucial part of west African history remains trapped in an outdated framework shaped by the types of sources historians have traditionally used.

The “Sierragambia” concept invites us to rethink borders and territories in west Africa. Borders are not simply lines drawn at European imperial conferences. They are also a result of complex interactions shaped by the Atlantic system, African diplomatic choices, and local power dynamics.

Recognising African agency also changes the way we think about reparations today. It moves us beyond a simple story of powerful oppressors and passive victims. The collapse of the Atlantic slave trade was not decided only in London or Paris. It played out on the ground, driven by local resistance and global economic shifts.

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Jobs Abroad Or Jobs In Africa? Why A Focus On Work In Other Countries Shouldn’t Replace Opportunities At Home

Thousands of African nurses are recruited to work in western countries every year. Wikimedia Commons

BY MICHAEL BOAMPONG, DANIEL ASAMAH AND MELISSA MOUTAAN

African governments are increasingly encouraging young people to work abroad. To address youth unemployment at home, for example, Ghana and Kenya have expanded labour mobility agreements with other countries. These include Spain, Qatar and Caribbean states.

Agreements with Gulf countries have largely focused on construction and service-sector jobs. But newer partnerships with Caribbean countries are targeting skilled professionals like nurses and healthcare workers.

These arrangements can create structured pathways for people to work abroad, often in sectors where labour is in high demand.

Many African countries have large and growing youth populations struggling to get decent jobs. Meanwhile, wealthier economies face ageing populations and labour shortages. Evidence suggests that 71.7% of young adult (25-29) workers in sub-Saharan Africa are engaged in “insecure” work. At the same time, countries across Europe and elsewhere need labour in sectors such as care, agriculture and construction. Matching workers to labour shortages abroad appears to offer a practical solution.

But a deeper question emerges. What are the long-term development implications of governments promoting overseas employment as an economic strategy?

We study migration governance and youth aspirations in Ghana. We have examined how governments, international actors and young people understand the role of migration in development. Drawing on documentary analysis, interviews with policymakers and migration stakeholders, and ethnographic research with young people in Ghana, our recent research found that policymakers increasingly adopt an “economic gains” lens. They view migration as a source of remittances, skills and investment. On the other hand, young people’s aspirations to migrate remain rooted in limited opportunities and broader socioeconomic realities.

Our study focused on migration governance rather than labour mobility agreements themselves. However, it raises the question of what happens when seeing migration as an economic resource begins to shape labour mobility policy.

The drivers

In Ghana, remittances account for 6% of the country’s GDP. In 2024, this was about US$4.6 billion. It was far more than foreign direct investment and official development assistance combined that year. Expanding overseas employment is therefore seen as increasing these inflows while easing pressure on domestic labour markets.

One example of the implications concerns the protection of migrant workers.

Recent research from Kenya has shown how governments may encourage overseas employment even when protections for migrant workers remain uneven. This is an important concern, but misses a larger issue.

Broader development trade-offs can receive less attention. Even where labour mobility agreements are relatively well regulated, they may still contribute to structural challenges at home, such as the loss of skilled workers in critical sectors like health and education.

Ghana provides a clear example. The country is already experiencing a significant outflow of health professionals. Records show 500 nurses have left every month in recent years to work abroad. At the same time, health systems at home remain under pressure, with high patient-to-healthcare personnel ratios and limited resources.

This has prompted wider debates about ethical recruitment from countries already facing healthcare workforce shortages. Promoting further migration, even under formal agreements, raises important questions. Can countries sustain essential services while easing the departure of skilled workers? And how do these policies affect long-term investments in human capital?

What happens when migrants return?

Our research also highlights the importance of thinking about migration as a broader development process rather than simply movement across borders. As labour mobility expands, the question of what happens when migrants return is becoming increasingly important. Many migrants eventually return home, bringing skills, experience and financial resources.

Return migration can support entrepreneurship, innovation and local development. But these outcomes are not automatic. The UN World Youth Report on Youth and Migration suggests that returnees often require effective reintegration support and access to economic opportunities to translate the skills and experience acquired abroad into local development gains. Policies such as skills recognition and access to finance can help make this possible.

Rethinking labour mobility

One implication of our research is that migration policies should be embedded within broader development strategies rather than judged only by their immediate economic returns. This does not mean labour mobility should be discouraged. Rather, it should complement (not replace) investments in decent work, skills development and strong public institutions at home. Labour mobility is therefore not inherently negative. When well designed, it can contribute to both individual and national development.

For this to happen, it needs to move beyond a narrow focus on job placement abroad.

First, strategic partnerships between governments, employers, education and training institutions, recruitment agencies and international organisations are essential. This could involve jointly designed training programmes, mutual recognition of qualifications, and agreements where destination countries invest in training skilled workers in origin countries.

Second, reintegration needs to be taken more seriously. Providing access to finance, training and employment opportunities for returnees can help translate migration experiences into local economic development gains.

Third, labour mobility should not replace domestic job creation but complement it. Governments need to continue investing in sectors that can offer young people decent work at home, rather than relying on migration as the primary solution to youth unemployment or underemployment.

The key question is how migration fits into a broader development strategy.

Labour mobility can create opportunities for individuals and families. But it cannot substitute for long-term investments in decent work, education and economic transformation at home.

If treated simply as a short-term solution to unemployment, labour mobility risks deepening inequalities and weakening already fragile systems. When embedded in a broader development strategy, it can contribute to more inclusive and sustainable growth.

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Ugandan Women Work In The Middle East Even Though They Face Abuse. They Told Us Why

Migrant work, inside and outside Uganda, is one of the many things people do to cope with dire economic situations. Unsplash

BY HANNE O. MOGENSEN AND JULIANA A. OBIKA

Labour migration from Uganda to the Middle East has surged since the early 2000s, with many young women travelling for employment as domestic workers. Most of these jobs are in Oman, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

However, researchers, journalists and organisations like Human Rights Watch and the International Labour Organisation have documented the widespread abuse and exploitation of Ugandan migrant domestic workers by their employers.

Cases include physical, sexual and psychological abuse, and restrictions on movement. Collectively, these accounts point to conditions that have been described as “modern slavery”.

The Ugandan government has attempted to regulate recruitment agencies and negotiate bilateral agreements on working conditions. It’s had limited success.

Networks of authorised and unauthorised recruitment agencies, and rows of posters in Kampala, continue to lure women with promises of well-paid domestic work in the Middle East. This is despite reports of exploitation surfacing regularly in Ugandan media.

Governments and organisations should protect the rights of migrant domestic workers. But it’s equally important to recognise these women as active agents, not just victims.

We are social scientists who research changing gender relations in Uganda. In a recent paper, we studied women’s decisions to migrate to the Middle East for domestic work. We wanted to understand why so many do so even though they are aware of the risks.

Between 2018 and 2022, we interviewed a group of Ugandan women who had worked in the Middle East. We use the term “Middle East” broadly because our focus was on the women’s experiences rather than the differences between the countries where they worked.

We were interested in why they’d migrated and how their experiences abroad affected their lives back home.

Their stories revealed striking contradictions. They spoke of slavery, humiliation and confinement, but also about “becoming somebody” through migrant domestic work.

This points to the reforms needed to improve working conditions abroad and expand opportunities at home.

Gender shifts

In countries where a majority of the population depends on the informal sector or subsistence agriculture, migrant work offers unmarried women, in particular, a rare opportunity to earn an income.

In Uganda, family identity and social status are traced through the father. Marriage has traditionally been formalised through the payment of bridewealth by the man’s family to the woman’s family.

Formalised marriage has become less common in recent decades, however. In the 1995 census, 64% of Ugandan women aged 15-49 described themselves as “married”, while 9% said they were “co-habiting”. By 2016, only 30% of women considered themselves married, while 30% were co-habiting.

The Uganda Bureau of Statistics stopped distinguishing between marriage and cohabitation in 2022. But close to 40% of the population considers itself neither married nor cohabiting.

During our fieldwork, we found that men are finding it increasingly difficult to pay bridewealth. As a result, many women spend their adult lives in a blend of partnerships; men go in and out of their lives while they remain with their children.

Women in our study linked their decision to migrate to the Middle East to men’s failure to live up to the ideal of being providers. They saw migration as a way to gain control over resources rather than waiting for a relationship to be formalised with a man who would then provide for them.

As one of our respondents stated:


First find yourself some money – marriage will always be there.

The women saw themselves as people who had taken their future into their own hands.

They readily acknowledged the harsh realities of the work. Many spoke of losing their freedom and encountering degrading attitudes towards women and, at times, racism. Yet, as one woman put it:

First get yourself the Arab experience then maybe you will become the lucky one who manages to move on to something else.

They hoped migrant work would be the first step towards a new life. And for some women in our study it did happen. They got better jobs in other countries.

Many however, did not. They returned several times to the Middle East before eventually settling down in Uganda.

Some returned home with savings, which they couldn’t do on a Ugandan wage. Earnings in the Middle East vary widely, so getting precise amounts proved difficult. And at home, they faced competing demands, like sharing resources with relatives and trying to build a permanent home of their own.

Even though many women never marry, motherhood remains a powerful social expectation. One in three Ugandan households are headed by women, according to the 2022 demographic survey. We found that even more women are actually heads of households even if a man is around some of the time.

Ugandans may say that a woman is “fathering a home” in the sense that she is building a house for herself and her children, making decisions and controlling resources. Not everybody succeeds in doing so, even after years in the Middle East. But some do. And the hope is there.

Power dynamics of migration

Recruitment agencies and other intermediaries profit from those hopes. The women’s “Arab bosses” may make possible the lives they aspire to build, while sustaining exploitative and oppressive labour relationships.

These experiences are shaped by wider global inequalities.

European countries are part of this unequal system. They restrict opportunities for low-wage migrants through tightening immigration policies. In doing so, they reinforce inequalities in who can move, where they can work and under what conditions.

The women in our study didn’t describe themselves as trying to challenge global inequalities or transform existing power structures. Rather, they sought greater control over resources and decision-making within their families and communities.

Their main motivation was to provide for their families. Yet they are also reshaping power and gender relations in Uganda and beyond.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

THERE WAS A WARRIOR CALLED OJUKWU

BY UZOR MAXIM UZOATU

He did not deliver on his promise to write “The Book” before his death.

The fact that Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu did not publish a book on the Nigeria-Biafra War leaves a very large hole in whatever passes for Nigerian history.

“Victors write history, and the Biafrans lost,” Frederick Forsyth writes in his controversial book The Making of an African Legend: The Biafra Story.

In the absence of a book by Ojukwu on the war, a lot of actors make all kinds of claims in their narratives.

For instance, there is this viral account of Prof Sam Aluko claiming that Biafra was declared before the Aburi conference in Ghana, an obvious lie.

It helps to somewhat right some of the wrongs that there is the 373-page book General of the People’s Army, compiled and edited by Chuks Iloegbunam, and published by Press Alliance Network Limited, Lagos in 2012.

Iloegbunam understands that Ojukwu was akin to a big masquerade that cannot be fully appreciated whist standing on one spot, whence this take from the blurb: “Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu was a multi-dimensional phenomenon. Because individual effort is incapable of adequately interpreting the legend, an amalgamation of local and international voices has assembled a composite pronouncement on the man who declared the Republic of Biafra. Given the centrality of Ojukwu in the history of Nigeria, General of the People’s Army is at once the story of a courageous soldier, a record of the African continent’s bloodiest attempt at secession and a statement on the texture of relations between former Biafrans and the rest of their countrymen and women.”

Although the book is divided into the six broad chapters or sections, it can be read quite seamlessly.
The inclusion of the epochal “Ahiara Declaration” in General of the People’s Army is akin to embedding a book in another book.

Dedicated “to the cause of a negotiated Nigeria”, General of the People’s Army kicks off with a robust preface from Iloegbunam thusly: “There are many like Ojukwu in the Igbo country – including Chinua Achebe, and Mbonu Ojike who died in his prime. They are the true measure of the Igbo spirit which Ojukwu exemplified in 1966. Today, people will be hard put to find sterling characters like them. Today, the dangling of an oil block or the waving of a fat dollar denominated cheque or a ministerial appointment would send many a pretender to Igbo leadership into swearing that the anti-Igbo pogrom of 1966 had not taken place. It is eternally to Ojukwu’s credit that he never posted his conscience, nor was he ever enticed by filthy lucre; he continued to the very end with the insistence that no ethnic group deserved to be cannon fodder in the Nigerian polity; no Nigerian deserved to be a second-class citizen in his own country.”

Saturday, November 26, 2011 was the red-letter day on which Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu passed on in London.

Governor Peter Obi of Ojukwu’s home state Anambra, in his lament, written in Igbo, mourns that “lightning and thunderbolt are silenced.”

Chinua Achebe celebrates the giant who lived for others.

For President Goodluck Jonathan, “Ojukwu’s place in Nigerian history remains assured.”

Senate President David Mark celebrates Ojukwu’s “metamorphosis from military leadership to a true democrat.”

For Senator Uche Chukwumerije, Ojukwu was “the man who saw tomorrow.”

Brigadier-General Samuel Ogbemudia who fought against Ojukwu in the war stresses that “Biafra would have been the toast of Africa” if it had succeeded.

Professor Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe sees Ojukwu as one of the greatest Igbo of all time whose death should lead to the goals of doing justice to the Igbo genocide and the restoration of Igbo sovereignty.
General Olusegun Obasanjo sees Ojukwu’s death as the end of an era.

General Ibrahim Babangida argues that Ojukwu’s understanding of the political dynamics of Nigeria was extraordinary.

Ojukwu was indeed a global phenomenon as showcased by the obituaries of The Economist, Associated Press, Time World, Washington Post, The Guardian of London etc.

The Nigerian newspapers counted too with their editorials.

The many dimensions of Ojukwu are showcased by ex-soldiers, intellectuals, columnists, deans and dons etc.

With the space available to me it is well-nigh impossible going into details as per each contribution.
It suffices that Wole Olaoye, for instance, reveals that Ojukwu bears the English name Christopher.
Is’haq Modibbo Kawu supplies the dimension that they were trained during the war to curse Ojukwu with passages from the Koran.

Of course there are the exclusive vistas of Ojukwu’s life in exile and the arrangement of his pardon and return supplied by his aide, the inimitable Kanayo Esinulo.

Iloegbunam’s General of the People’s Army comes with a good dose of contentious issues like this deposition by Igwe Alex Nwokedi: “When you look at it, while the Hausa were talking about education imbalance, the Igbo, instead of complaining, didn’t but rather they strived to catch up with the Yoruba so much so that today there are more lawyers, doctors and engineers in Igboland than there are in Yorubaland.”

Iloegbunam takes charge to correct errors of fact, like insisting that the Aburi peace talks did not fail but rather Gowon’s Federal Government reneged on the accord.

The errors in the rendering of the Daily Trust editorial are duly pointed out by Iloegbunam.
Prof Aluko’s sequence of events is inaccurate, according to Iloegbunam, because Aburi antedated Biafra’s secession by five months.

Iloegbunam asserts that TY Danjuma did not command a Division during the civil war.
There is no escaping the fact that Ojukwu is a very controversial subject, but then he ended up being the one Nigerian given the greatest burial in the nation’s history.

Given the absence of a book on the war by Ojukwu, Chuks Iloegbunam has done a landmark duty in putting together the many dimensions of the man’s life in General of the People’s Army.

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‘I Promised People I Would Do Something’

Broadcast Journalist Antonio Sanchez (Facebook)

When Antonio Sánchez lost his job—and Oregon lost its only Spanish news station—he started his own daily YouTube broadcast. The show now reaches tens of thousands.

BY GRACE BENNINGHOFF

Last June, Kenia Jackeline Merlos, her four children, and her sister were at a park in Washington State when they were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. The children and Merlos’s sister spent two weeks in custody, but Merlos was detained for months. At a loss for how to help, her sister contacted an independent journalist, Antonio Sánchez, a reporter who for nearly a decade had been the lead anchor for Univision Portland—the area’s only Spanish-language news outlet—before starting his own broadcast on YouTube. He broke the story of Merlos’s detention and continued to cover her case until she was released.

The story was later picked up by national outlets. “I trusted Antonio to share my story because of his professionalism, his reputation in the community, and the respect he has shown for others in similar situations,” Merlos told me. “He took the time to understand the details, and he kept sharing until I got released. He followed my story until the end.”

Sánchez, who is forty-five, grew up in Calexico, California, near the border with Mexico, where he spoke Spanish at home. His newscast, tailored to the Spanish-speaking community in the Portland area—“Están cayendo como moscas muertas” (They’re dropping like flies), he reported of turnover in President Trump’s cabinet—reaches about fifty thousand people per week and has nearly ten thousand subscribers. His reports cover everything from local politics to crime to weather, broadcast from a basement in Southeast Portland. Acoustic foam is checkered across the ceiling, turquoise carpet covers the vinyl flooring, and a television screen behind the desk bears the name of his show: Noticias Noroeste.

Going solo hadn’t been part of his career plans. But in September of 2024, he was laid off from Univision Portland, and the station, KUNP-TV, announced it was severing ties with Univision and transitioning to English-language news and sports coverage. “I started getting all these messages asking what’s going to happen,” he said.

A few weeks later, Trump won the presidential election. The messages kept coming. “They were asking, ‘What’s going to happen to us? A new government is about to take over.’ I felt like maybe I could create something while I look for a job,” Sánchez said.

He ordered a teleprompter, a microphone, and lights on Amazon; soundproofed the basement; and asked a friend to create a logo. Startup costs ran about fifteen hundred bucks. He produced his first broadcast on Inauguration Day. “Even if it looked bad, it was always going to air,” he said, “because I promised people that I would do something.”

Since then, he has dedicated twelve or more hours each day to reporting, producing, and editing. “I want to preserve that tradition of doing everything they watched on television,” he said. Sánchez wears a suit and sits at a desk as he runs through the top stories. But he has made changes, too. “I talk in sayings—that’s very typical in Spanish, and that’s something you don’t do in English news,” he told me. His style also differs from most Spanish-language news in the United States, where Univision and Telemundo operate under the umbrella of an English-language parent company and tend to align with American broadcast standards. “The media in general has a problem with finding real connection with the audience,” Ismael Nafría, an independent journalist and former board vice president of Sembra Media, a nonprofit that supports Spanish-language media, told me. “The language issue is so important if you want to build something authentic and something real.”

Sánchez built trust quickly. Last fall, reporting on ICE arrests around Portland, he drew a record eighty thousand viewers. He also found himself pushing back against misinformation from local social media influencers who had told audiences they’d witnessed ICE raids—which Sánchez’s reporting revealed were actually local drug raids. “I’m almost like their 211,” he said of his relationship with viewers. “The language barrier makes it harder for them to pick up a phone and call a helpline. But they can message me, and I’ll respond quickly.”

Sánchez initially envisioned Noticias Noroeste as temporary—something to fill the gap left by Univision until a larger station resumed local Spanish-language coverage. But then he thought, “I had to keep doing it.” A new channel, Telemundo Portland, started up about six months ago, but its broadcast is anchored out of Kansas City and includes only a two-minute local segment.

Sánchez said he supports his broadcast through advertising. He brings in at least three thousand dollars per month through ads, sometimes more, and funds are paid to him directly. His ads come from Multnomah County, the Tualatin Valley Water District, and the City of Portland, among others; most are PSAs. “I can’t be worried about, ‘Oh my God, my views went down, my views went up.’ I don’t care. I’m not an influencer, I’m a journalist,” he said. Once revenue allows, he hopes to hire interns. Eventually, he said, he’d like to move into a bigger space.

In January, Merlos was invited to celebrate Noticias Noroeste’s first anniversary party. She said she was nervous—she expected a roomful of “fancy people”—but was surprised to find Sánchez had invited other Portlanders who had been detained by ICE. It was a chance to connect with others who understood firsthand what she and her family had been through. “It’s important to get connected,” she told me. “No one else is going to understand your situation.”

Private Matters

Catherine Herridge

Catherine Herridge, a former Fox News reporter, is being compelled to pay $800 a day until she reveals confidential sources.

BY RIDDHY SETTY

In 2003, Toni Locy, a former reporter for USA Today, published a series of articles about the FBI’s investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks that left five people dead and seventeen infected. Along the way, she reported on Steven Hatfill, a former Army scientist who was the initial focus of the FBI’s probe. In 2003, Hatfill filed a civil lawsuit under the Privacy Act, a federal law that restricts government agencies from sharing private information about individuals without their consent. As part of his legal efforts, in 2004 he pressed Locy and other journalists to testify and reveal their sources.

In February of 2008, a federal judge held Locy in contempt of court for refusing to do so. Notably, Hatfill had sued not Locy but the federal government, arguing that his reputation had been ruined due to law enforcement officials leaking to the media and linking him to the attacks. By then, Locy was working as a journalism professor at West Virginia University. She was subject to a fine of five hundred dollars for seven days, one thousand dollars for the next seven, and five thousand dollars for the seven days after that. The judge also barred anyone from helping her pay this fine—her students couldn’t even hold a bake sale to fundraise for her.

Cases like Locy’s—those brought by individuals against the government, resulting in journalists being subpoenaed and held in contempt—are unusual. But they haven’t gone away.

In 2017, Catherine Herridge, then a reporter for Fox News, published a story about Yanping Chen, a Chinese American scientist who was the subject of an FBI counterintelligence investigation. In 2018, Chen, who was never charged, filed a civil lawsuit against the government under the Privacy Act and subpoenaed Herridge to reveal her sources. In 2024, a Washington, DC, district court ordered Herridge, by then an independent journalist, to pay a fine of eight hundred dollars for each day she did not reveal her sources.

As with Locy’s case, Herridge is not a named party in the lawsuit. Her reporting is not in dispute, and she does not currently face the threat of jail time. But the DC court is asking her to reveal her sources in litigation brought against the government for violating the Privacy Act. “In these Privacy Act cases, the plaintiff needs to establish that the government leaker or alleged leaker acted willfully, and so that’s why you can see plaintiffs in these cases, which are ordinary civil cases, going after journalists,” Gabe Rottman, the vice president of policy at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said. Complicating Herridge’s case is the fact that documents about the FBI’s investigation of Chen were filed under seal, and all of the appellate arguments about those documents were held in closed court. The Freedom of the Press Foundation has filed a motion to unseal the documents and hearing transcript.

Core to the litigation is the question of whether Herridge should be protected from being compelled to testify through reporter’s privilege. While most states, as well as the District of Columbia, have enacted shield laws protecting a reporter’s right not to reveal their confidential sources, recent attempts to create a federal version have failed. Much of the current case law dates back to Zerilli v. Smith, a 1981 case concerning an investigation into organized crime where the government, without a warrant, had planted a listening device. The resulting logs were sealed, but some of their contents were reported on by the Detroit News. In that case, a DC district court judge and court of appeals found that the reporter did not have to reveal their sources. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals judge also ruled that a plaintiff must prove that the information they are requesting goes to “the heart of the matter” and that they have exhausted all other reasonable means to get it before a court can compel a reporter to reveal a source—a test that became crucial in subsequent decisions.

Rottman pointed out that if a court considers only these two factors, a judge can almost always find reason to rule against a reporter’s right to protect their sources in privacy cases. “There’s other things that the court could conceivably do to strengthen the privilege,” he told me. “They can test whether the person’s claim would even survive without the information. So, in other words, if there was an independent source for the potential harm to the plaintiff, the court could rightly look at that and say, ‘Well, you’re going to likely lose anyways, and so we’re not going to pierce the privilege.’”

In Herridge’s case, the DC district court judge held that Chen had cleared the bar put forth in the Zerilli test—getting to the heart of the matter and exhausting all other reasonable means to get the information—and ordered Herridge to reveal her sources, holding her in contempt when she refused to do so. In his 2024 decision, Christopher R. Cooper, a judge in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, stayed the fine until an appeals court ruled on her case; in September of 2025 the appeals court ruled against Herridge.

In June of 2026, after the appeals court declined to rehear the case, it refused to stay the fine Herridge has been ordered to pay while she prepares her next appeal—this time to the Supreme Court. On July 2, the Supreme Court denied her emergency request to stay the fines (while it considered the request, the fines were stayed); notably, Justice Brett Kavanaugh supported granting the application for a stay. “We’re pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision and hope that it will help bring a close to this matter. It follows complete vindication for Dr. Chen in the district and circuit courts,” Andrew C. Phillips, an attorney for Chen, told CJR in an emailed statement.

In Locy’s case, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit—which included Kavanaugh—stayed the fines pending a decision by the court. But the appeals court never wound up making a decision, because Hatfill’s case was settled. This rendered Locy’s contempt issue irrelevant, effectively canceling her fine. Locy had hoped to push the appeals court to make a decision. “They didn’t think there was a need to decide anything,” Locy, who is now a professor of journalism and mass communications at Washington and Lee University, told me. “I wish they had. Because I think I wasn’t going to win on everything, but I think I was going to win on some stuff,” she said. “And it might have helped Catherine.”

Locy told me that, in Privacy Act cases that seek to force journalists to reveal their sources, plaintiffs’ lawyers often appear to be using them as a shortcut: “They want the journalists to do their work for them, and federal judges are allowing these plaintiffs’ attorneys to go after journalists, and in Privacy Act civil lawsuits, which is a cheap, dangerous way for civil litigators who are looking for a payday.”

Though the reporters subpoenaed in Privacy Act cases are not the ones being sued, news organizations have participated in settling these lawsuits alongside the government. In former nuclear weapons scientist Wen Ho Lee’s lawsuit against the government, five journalists from publications including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and ABC were subpoenaed and refused to reveal their sources. These organizations agreed to pay Lee seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars as part of a settlement that the government also participated in to end the contempt-of-court proceedings against their reporters.

While independent reporters are particularly vulnerable in these cases, Seth Stern, the chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said this is a fight that corporate media organizations may not want to take on either. “When you look at corporate media, you’ve got to wonder if they value the First Amendment at all, given how they’ve capitulated to attacks on the First Amendment lately,” he said. “Certainly, you know corporate outlets can afford to pay eight hundred dollars a day. That’s not a question, but they could also afford to litigate with Donald Trump, and they chose not to.”

Cases like Herridge’s may be relatively rare, Rottman said, “but when they do occur, they’re really consequential for press freedom.”

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Alcohol, Sex And Violence: A Dangerous Cocktail That Makes Young Women Vulnerable To HIV

Alcohol consumption is embedded in South African society. Maor Attias/pexels

BY ZOE DUBY AND KATE BERGH

South Africa has the largest HIV epidemic in the world, with adolescent girls and young women aged 15-24 at the highest risk of getting HIV. HIV prevalence among girls and women in this age group is roughly double that of their male peers.

Research has identified numerous factors that increase vulnerability among women and girls. These include unequal power dynamics in relationships, challenges in negotiating condom use, as well as exposure to violence. Heavy alcohol consumption or binge drinking can amplify these situations, thus increasing HIV vulnerability.

Binge drinking is defined as consuming five or more drinks in one sitting. This behaviour is widespread and normalised in many South African communities with 54% of male drinkers and 35% of female drinkers reporting that they binge drink.

As socio-behavioural scientists our interests lie in the areas of sexual and reproductive health, and sociocultural norms and structural barriers to HIV prevention.

Our recent research sought to explore the intersection between alcohol use, HIV risk and HIV acquisition among adolescent girls and young women living in high HIV-burdened communities in South Africa. We used data from the HERStory3 study, an impact evaluation of the My Journey programme. My Journey is a combination HIV prevention intervention that aims to reduce HIV, teenage pregnancy and gender based violence, as well as keep girls in school and improve their access to economic opportunities.

We found that hazardous drinking was common and strongly linked to sexual violence and condomless sex. But it was not directly associated with HIV acquisition in this study. That does not make alcohol irrelevant. It suggests the pathway from drinking to HIV is indirect, layered, and shaped by other social conditions.

Our findings suggest that HIV prevention for adolescent girls and young women cannot focus only on condoms or individual behaviour change. It needs to confront the conditions that make risk possible.
How the study was done

Our team conducted the HERStory3 study, which was an external evaluation of the My Journey programme. The programme has been delivering services in schools, colleges, dedicated safe spaces and mobile clinics since 2016.

Services start with an HIV risk and vulnerability assessment. Then depending on their needs, girls are offered HIV testing, prevention and treatment services as well as pregnancy testing and contraceptives.

The programme is being implemented in 12 sub-districts with a high HIV burden across eight provinces in South Africa.

To evaluate the programme, we conducted a post-intervention household survey in 2024 with 5,025 adolescent girls and young women. The survey was conducted in the 12 intervention sub-districts, and 12 matched sub-districts that didn’t receive the intervention, for comparison. To complement the survey, our study also included in-depth telephonic interviews with 68 young women from seven provinces.

Those interviews were important because they gave girls the chance to tell us their stories, and help to explain two things. First, whether alcohol was associated with risk. Second, how alcohol fitted into girls’ social worlds.

What we found

We tested the relationship between hazardous drinking and specific sexual risk behaviours. Our analysis showed no statistically significant association between alcohol use and HIV status. However, we found it was associated with sexual violence and condomless sex. Hazardous drinking also appeared to be linked to transactional sex. But this relationship was not strong or consistent once the other risk behaviours were considered.

The interviews helped provide a backdrop to why alcohol consumption among women and girls in South Africa is increasing.

In the narratives of the young women we spoke to, alcohol was woven into peer culture, family and community drinking spaces. Girls described engaging in age-disparate and transactional relationships. These commonly end up in situations in which girls obtain alcohol from older men who expect sex in exchange. The interviews showed that alcohol is not just a drink but a social currency that shapes how girls navigate bars and other drinking venues.

In the social context of bars and informal drinking venues, this exchange can blur consent because alcohol may be used to initiate or pressure sexual access. And the power imbalance created by age, money and intoxication makes it harder for girls to insist on condoms or leave safely.

The risk does not end with sexual coercion.

When girls refuse sex after receiving alcohol, they may face anger, intimidation, or physical violence. This shows how alcohol-related exchange can escalate from social interaction into gender-based harm. This pathway helps explain why alcohol use among adolescent girls and young women cannot be separated from transactional sex, coercion and violence in high HIV-burden settings.

The HIV link

The lack of a direct statistical link between hazardous drinking and HIV infection is not surprising once the broader context is considered. HIV acquisition is the result of repeated exposures over time. Our survey measured drinking and HIV acquisition at a single point in time.

If alcohol increases HIV risk gradually through exposure to sexual violence and condomless sex as a result of transactional or age-disparate relationships, that effect may not appear as a simple one-to-one association in cross-sectional data.

The findings from the interviews make that chain of influence more visible. They show how alcohol can weaken bargaining power, place girls and young women in unsafe settings, and make negotiations for condom use harder.

In the interviews, girls described being expected to have sex after men bought them drinks, and that refusal could lead to rape, threats, or physical violence. The interviews also show that alcohol use among adolescent girls and young women is socially embedded rather than purely individual. This is important for interpreting the study findings.

What the findings mean

HIV prevention for this population needs to address the settings in which alcohol is accessed, the gendered power relations that shape sexual decision-making, and the violence that can follow from those relationships.

The findings point to the importance of safer recreational spaces, community-level alcohol harm reduction, and interventions that reduce women’s dependence on transactional exchanges with older men.

There is also a message here for programme design. Multi-component HIV prevention interventions are more likely to work when they are tailored to the social realities of young women’s lives, not just their knowledge of risk.

Future research should follow participants over longer periods, use stronger causal designs where possible, and test whether reducing hazardous drinking also lowers violence and condomless sex over time.

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Racism At The World Cup Is An Ugly Reality. How To Understand Where It Comes From

BY CHRISTIAN UNGRUHE

RESEARCH FELLOW,

UNIVERSITY OF PASSAU

No African teams made it past the quarter-finals of the 2026 men’s football World Cup, but their strategic and tactical play left a lasting impression.

The success of African teams doesn’t come out of the blue, it’s the result of a long process. It’s therefore surprising that African football remains underrated and downgraded by experts, often in a manner that reveals their ignorance both to African football and history. At times, their comments have a highly problematic racist tone.

This was the case with former star player Bastian Schweinsteiger, now a longtime commentator for a German TV network. Ahead of a group stage match against Côte d’Ivoire, he was asked what Germany’s team could expect. He responded:

A bit African football, a bit unorthodox, a bit wild … perhaps also not so conditioned by tactics. We must be prepared for it to be unpredictable.

Setting aside the fact that the German team was often the weaker side – both tactically and in terms of style of play – this characterisation is inappropriate and offensive. It’s based on a stereotyped, colonialist view of Africa.

On the one hand, Schweinsteiger faced criticism that his statement was racist.

As Cote d’Ivoire’s manager, Emerse Fae, said:

It is odd he would speak that way. We could call it racist … I can only hope it is a clumsy statement, rather than something going on in his mind.

On the other hand, there were many people on online forums and social media who wondered why Schweinsteiger’s statement was considered racist, as did his broadcaster, ARD.

Schweinsteiger responded weakly to the criticism:

I was talking about football, not people. This is a football analysis – nothing more, nothing less.

I often hear this kind of downplaying when football in Africa and its people are subtly devalued. As an anthropologist, my research focuses on the migration of football players from various parts of Africa and on the forces that have shaped the evolution of African football, especially the modern game. A key focus is on racialisation, othering, and racism experienced by players.

The research shows that African footballers, and Black players more generally, face different forms of racism.

On social media, they frequently encounter open and hostile rejection and insults. A recent example is the offensive post by Paraguayan senator Celeste Amarilla, after her country’s loss to France. She described Kylian Mbappé as a colonised Cameroonian, desperately trying to pass himself off as French … resentful, arrogant and ugly.

Players from Africa also face structural disadvantages in the football industry. This is evident in shorter contracts and lower salaries, as well as peripheral playing positions and less consideration for coaching and administrative roles, as various studies show.

After all, they are also constantly confronted with more subtle forms of everyday racism, which manifests itself in their abilities and qualities being devalued. They are often reduced to their physical appearance, their intelligence denied.

Everyday racism is often expressed subtly and white people like Schweinsteiger are often not aware of its racist connotation. Therefore, the question of whether Bastian Schweinsteiger is a racist or not is not the crucial one (he most likely is not).

The key question is rather why these stereotypes are repeatedly expressed in football and why, for many people, they seem to reflect reality rather than appear problematic. To understand this, we need to do justice to Africa’s diversity and further look at the continent’s colonial history.

Colonial stereotypes

For one thing, simplistic statements like Schweinsteiger’s disparage football across an entire continent without making any distinctions. There is just as little such thing as an “African” style of football as there is a “European” one. This does not do justice to a complex reality and it reveals either ignorance or indifference.

Second, describing African football as “unorthodox,” “wild,” and “not characterised by tactics”, perpetuates stereotypes from the colonial era that extend beyond the sport. My study of African footballers in Germany shows how the players are vulnerable to broader, structural vulnerabilities in Europe.

How many view African migrant footballers is grounded in colonial thinking. European colonisation legitimised itself by ranking people. The enlightened European, capable of reflection, and the uneducated African, who must be tamed.

Starting in the 1920s, colonial administrators deliberately used football to subjugate Africans. Sport was used to teach team spirit and rules to the allegedly naïve, raw and perhaps threatening African in order to turn him into a person loyal to the colony.

Openly showing resistance was dangerous. But interestingly, this happened on the football field. Studies outline how some Africans didn’t try to play by the rules. They tried to make feints, dribbles, and tricks – on the one hand to entertain their own people, but also to display defiance.

During the struggle for independence, football was then used by some African countries to foster a sense of national and pan-African unity. After all, colonial borders had been drawn arbitrarily. National football teams were important, but so was the style of play – integrity and technical skill presented an alternative to the colonial image.

Over the years, national playing styles have developed in various ways. They are influenced by cultural values, transnational linkages and the game becoming professionalised. However, the original mix – powerful bodies, skillful dribbling, and a childlike, naïve approach – has become ingrained in European minds.

Slow poison

At first glance, subtle disparaging remarks like Schweinsteiger’s may not seem to be as racist as the open insults and degrading comments seen every day in football and society. But they are hurtful. And because they are firmly embedded in the social knowledge of European countries, they are hard to erase

Rather, they are a creeping poison that, when constantly reproduced, shapes a society’s collective consciousness. As my research has found, such remarks not only disparage football in Africa but also shape the general perception of a continent that is allegedly backward at every level.

To tackle the powerful colonial-era image of an African inferiority, it is important to take action against all forms of racist disparagement in football and beyond, whether they are unintentional, subtle, or explicit.

READ ORIGINAL STORY HERE

KNOCK, KNOCK

By issuing subpoenas to five Times journalists, the Trump administration reveals its first response to unwanted national security coverage: go after reporters.

BY JEM BARTHOLOMEW

On Friday evening, federal agents showed up at the homes of multiple New York Times reporters to deliver subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury. Those who received—or may soon receive—subpoenas include Julian E. Barnes, Adam Goldman, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager, and Eric Schmitt, according to an email that Joe Kahn, the paper’s executive editor, sent Times staff over the weekend. The journalists had been part of a team investigating security concerns related to Donald Trump’s new Air Force One—a gift from Qatar last year that was quickly refurbished and decorated in the gaudy cream-and-gold that is typical of Trumpist style. The Times decided to immediately go public about the subpoenas, which seek to compel the reporters to testify in Manhattan on Wednesday. “The appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects,” David McCraw, the Times newsroom lawyer, said in a statement on Friday. “This brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.”

Since returning to office, Trump has complained about the look of presidential planes. Other countries had newer planes that appeared “bigger and sleeker and sharper” than Air Force One, Trump told Fox News last year, “and it doesn’t look right.” In May of 2025, the US accepted Qatar’s gift of a Boeing 747-8 jetliner. It was reportedly worth about two hundred million dollars, and was intended to be the president’s official plane until two Boeing aircraft, commissioned in 2018 but repeatedly delayed, were ready. The Qatari plane was retrofitted to become “a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody’s ever seen before,” Trump said when he unveiled it in a hangar in Maryland last month. “Now when we land at airports in London and Germany and different places, nobody tops this one.”

But last Wednesday, Barnes, Lipton, Pager, and Schmitt heard from sources that, as a security precaution, Trump had been forced to switch back to the old Air Force One when leaving a NATO summit in Türkiye. They wrote about concerns that the Qatari plane may not have been outfitted with security improvements, such as a missile defense system, that officials felt were necessary because of renewed threats from Iran. It was a classic public interest story: millions in taxpayer dollars had been spent to refit the plane that carries the commander in chief and a large entourage of officials, staff, and journalists, but was it even equipped with the necessary defensive features? According to the Times’ Michael Grynbaum, a senior official at the FBI requested that the Times hold the article—calling it a matter of national security—and asked to know the sources of the information. (The piece cited “people briefed on the new plane’s capabilities, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues.”) The Times refused both requests and hit publish. The article was followed, on Thursday, by another piece that delved more deeply into the specific defensive countermeasures that may have been skipped when refitting the Qatari plane. The reporting made the Times’ front page on Friday and Saturday. Trump was “fuming,” “embarrassed and angry,” according to CNN.

The episode fused two phenomena that have long infuriated Trump: being embarrassed on the international stage, and the use of anonymous sources in reporting that does not flatter him or his administration. He instructed Kash Patel, the FBI director, to oversee a leak investigation, the Times reported (quoting more people who spoke “on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive internal discussions”). Patel was on his way to Chicago but canceled the trip, instead spending eight hours at the White House on Friday. The subpoenas were issued soon after, from the Southern District of New York. They are strikingly uncommon in leak investigations—let alone as the first step in such a probe. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department insisted on Saturday that “reporters are not the targets; those leaking classified information are.”

But the subpoenas must be seen as part of a wider push by the Trump administration to criminalize routine newsgathering practices, especially on topics related to national security. Last month, the Justice Department issued grand jury subpoenas to journalists at the Washington Post, reportedly for a story relating to Venezuela, and the Wall Street Journal, for a story on military action against Iran, but later backed down and withdrew them after the news organizations pushed back. (The filings in those cases are sealed.) In January, the FBI raided the home of Hannah Natanson, a Post reporter, seizing her devices and referring to her reporting materials as “contraband” in a case “virtually without comparison,” as Maddy Crowell wrote for CJR at the time. And Trump has personally sued multiple news organizations for coverage he didn’t like. Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists, described the Times subpoenas as an “extraordinary escalation” in efforts to “threaten and intimidate independent news organizations.”

The latest case is particularly revealing because it tells us that the Trump administration’s first impulse is now to pursue reporters, even before conducting a thorough internal leak investigation. This seems to treat journalists as criminals for legally receiving information, and looks like a cynical excuse to try to comb through their notebooks and ransack their contact lists. If the five Times journalists are forced to appear before a grand jury, they could be asked to reveal their sources—and, as Perry Stein writes in the Post, they could face charges of contempt of court or obstruction of justice if they refuse to comply. “This is not something that should be normal,” Jon Schleuss, the president of the NewsGuild-CWA, of which the subpoenaed reporters are members, told me on Sunday. “But when the president attacks journalists every single day, that becomes an unfortunate normalization—and if we ignore it, then we’re doomed.” The “really scary thing,” Schleuss added, is that Trump’s tactics against the press “are filtering down at the state and the county and the city level. You have county sheriffs who will see this and say, ‘This is how we actually prevent reporting about the no-good contracts that we’ve got.’”

The Times has signaled its intention to aggressively fight the subpoenas. “This is a naked attempt to intimidate individual reporters and to prevent the Times and other independent news media from doing important reporting protected by the First Amendment,” Kahn wrote to staff on Saturday. The paper has a very good chance of winning. As I wrote for CJR in April, the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on critical journalism have not gone down well in many courtrooms. Kahn, in his email, pointed out that the “impulsive” subpoenas “used vague pretenses of a threat to national security,” and said that “we expect to prevail.” But he also issued a warning about the impending strain of the subpoenas on the lives and families of the five targeted journalists, who, for however long this takes, will be tangled up in Trump’s sprawling web of litigation.

Other Notable Stories...

By Jem Bartholomew

On Wednesday night, Graham Platner, a Senate candidate from Maine, announced on X that he was suspending his campaign, after Politico published a story in which Jenny Racicot, a woman who dated him, said Platner sexually assaulted her. (He denied the allegations.) Betsy Morais, the editor in chief of CJR, wrote about the extraordinarily difficult, sensitive task of reporting on sexual violence. “A story like this asks you to hold two things at once: real sensitivity toward a source who is describing a traumatic experience and real rigor in testing the account,” Jessica Piper, one of the authors of the Politico story, told Morais.In May, Riddhi Setty and I wrote for CJR about how the Trump administration was helping a white, male editor, Bryant Rousseau, sue the New York Times for discrimination; Rousseau is alleging that he was subjected to “unlawful employment practices” when he was not put forward for the role of deputy real estate editor at the paper. Last Friday, the Times said in a court filing that the administration had violated the First and Fifth Amendments with the suit—and called it an act of retaliation for its journalism. The Times asked for the suit to be dismissed. (Rousseau resigned from the company in June, the Times’ Erik Wemple reported.)On Friday, a federal court in Los Angeles ordered the Department of Homeland Security to stop using force to prevent journalists, legal observers, and members of the public from documenting immigration enforcement operations in the Central District of California. The case, filed in June of last year by plaintiffs including the LA Press Club, the NewsGuild-CWA, and three individual journalists, came after DHS agents used militarized crowd-control weapons against people documenting immigration raids. “No federal agency has the authority to use force to prevent the public from documenting and holding the government accountable for its actions,” Jonathan Markovitz, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said in a statement.In the UK, Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail, won a major case at the High Court in London on Tuesday against a lineup of claimants including Prince Harry, Elton John, and Doreen Lawrence, who became an advocate for police reform after the racially motivated murder of her son Stephen in 1993, and is now a member of the House of Lords. The plaintiffs alleged a pattern of unlawful information gathering by the news organization—following revelations of phone-hacking in the British tabloid press during the aughts—but Justice Matthew Nicklin said they had failed to prove that the Mail engaged in unlawful activity. At a hearing later this month, the claimants could be ordered to pay tens of millions of dollars in legal bills. (They are reportedly deciding whether to appeal.)In the occupied West Bank on Sunday, Israeli settlers attacked several journalists, including some from CNN, who were reporting on the one-year anniversary of the killing of Saif Musallet, a Palestinian American who was beaten to death by settlers near the village of Sinjil, north of Ramallah. Soon after the journalists arrived, four people showed up wielding “wooden and metal rods and stones,” according to a CNN write-up. (Israeli police said four suspects were arrested.) Jeremy Diamond, CNN’s Jerusalem correspondent, who was present, said that a full report on the attack would air on Monday night. In related news, the Committee to Protect Journalists on Wednesday urged Israeli authorities to investigate two recent attacks that targeted the entrances of the Tel Aviv offices of two news organizations—Haaretz, a newspaper, and Channel 12, a broadcaster—with concrete blocks or stones. The vandalism, according to CPJ, seemed like attempts “to intimidate journalists and media workers.” And several Iranian journalists said they were denied US visas to cover the World Cup, according to an article in Nieman Reports, which described the refusals as “unprecedented.” The Trump administration’s travel restrictions on several countries represented in the tournament—Iran, Haiti, Senegal, and the Ivory Coast—included an exemption for athletes, staff, and immediate family members, but it did not extend to fans or media workers. For more on the World Cup—now narrowed to four semifinalists: France, Spain, England, and Argentina—see Amos Barshad’s piece for CJR on news outlets bringing politics into their coverage of the tournament, which concludes next Sunday.

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Senegal Is On The Brink: The IMF, The World Bank, And The Debt Crisis That Imperils West Africa

BY HANNAH NRAE ARMSTRONG AND JOHN MCINTIRE

W est Africa is reeling. Over the past five years, coups have racked Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, and the juntas now in charge are dismantling the countries’ institutions. Even as they repress their subjects, they are losing territory to emboldened insurgents. And as these insurgent groups become more entrenched in the central Sahel, they are beginning to threaten the coastal states of Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo.

But amid this upheaval, Senegal remains a democracy in which strong institutions mostly govern capably. The country possesses skilled civil servants with track records of transparent, efficient fiscal management. In 2024, Senegal faced a severe political crisis when the outgoing administration resisted leaving power, but an independent Constitutional Council and an engaged civil society prevented an unconstitutional postponement of elections. Senegal is essentially the only major country in Francophone West Africa whose government remains accountable to its citizens; its stability telegraphs to its neighbors that democratic rule is both desirable and achievable.

Now, however, Senegal is grappling with its own existential threat. On a single day in February 2025, the country went from being considered one of Africa’s most stable economies to one of its most vulnerable after the discovery that President Diomaye Faye’s predecessor, Macky Sall, had hidden extensive debt. The country’s debt-to-GDP ratio has since soared from under 75 percent to over 132 percent. Amid a recent fallout between the country’s top two political leaders, Senegal is attempting to negotiate a new program with the International Monetary Fund. Without help, Senegal could default.

A little support in the form of debt relief from the IMF and the World Bank would quickly help restore balance. A punishing debt burden, on the other hand, would sap resources for badly needed public services, infrastructure, and economic development initiatives. Beyond weakening Senegal’s governing capabilities, such an outcome would create new political and security vulnerabilities throughout West Africa at precisely the moment when Russia is trying to exploit disorder to recruit new proxies.

HIDDEN FIGURES

Over the past five years, military regimes seized power in the central Sahel states, Côte d’Ivoire elected an 83-year-old fourth-term president who banned opposition candidates from running, and Togo pushed through constitutional reforms to keep a two-decade-old dynasty in power. But Senegal managed to remain stable and accountable. In 2024, civil society actors and an independent judiciary drew on what the political scientists Ibrahima Fall and Catherine Lena Kelly describe as Senegal’s democratic “muscle memory”—decades of mobilizing to defend checks and balances—to ensure elections proceeded on schedule. A duo of youthful reformers (Faye and the fiery Ousmane Sanko, who now serves as speaker of the National Assembly) defeated Sall’s handpicked candidate in a decisive first-round victory.

And until February 2025, Senegal’s economic outlook was mostly sunny, having enjoyed a strong recovery after the COVID pandemic. In recent decades, Senegal has expanded access to quality public services, closed the gender gap in school enrollment, and significantly reduced infant mortality rates. New hydrocarbon projects were expected to allow for increased government investments in roads, energy, and water.

But when Faye took over from Sall, his government commissioned an independent audit of state finances to establish the extent of Senegal’s public debt amid rumors of anomalies. The audit’s findings, published on February 12, 2025, came as a shock: they revealed an estimated $7 billion to $13 billion in unreported debt incurred between 2019 and 2023. It became clear that over the course of his second term, Sall had significantly boosted government borrowing and spending as he pursued an unconstitutional third term, all while intentionally misreporting debt figures in legally mandated public accounting to Senegal’s parliament.

The huge debt had gone unnoticed because Senegal’s presidency and finance ministry had hidden it from the National Assembly, the IMF, and the World Bank by keeping unrecorded loans off the books. But the latter two institutions played a role in the accrual of the illegal debt. Since the 1990s, the IMF and the World Bank have been long-term development partners for Senegal, making substantial technical and financial commitments intended to promote growth and reduce poverty. The most recent were a $1.8 billion loan package from the IMF and $300 million in budget support from the World Bank. At that point, these institutions had enough material evidence to discern anomalies, yet they kept financing Sall’s government.

Under Senegal’s program with the IMF, the multilateral lender would have had full electronic access to the government’s fiscal and financial data, enabling it to closely monitor financial activity. Senegalese authorities were required to provide electronic reporting every three to six months, often giving the IMF more detailed oversight of the government’s finances than the country’s own parliament enjoys. Such a discrepancy is reprehensible but by no means unusual. Members of parliament and ministry officials across Africa often appeal to World Bank officials for more detailed information about government finances than their own finance ministry provides.

Red flags appeared in Senegal’s reporting to the IMF as early as June 2021, according to IMF biannual reviews that showed that Dakar had requested modifying performance criteria regarding borrowing and fiscal balance; one review in June 2022 even waived the performance criteria altogether. By the summer of 2023, as Sall faced growing public demands that he step down when his term ended, the IMF would already have flagged serious reporting inconsistencies. But despite the IMF’s substantial access to Senegalese records (and, no doubt, misled by reporting that mixed legitimate data with alleged falsifications and significant omissions), the IMF and the World Bank gave Senegal extra money in 2023: in May, the World Bank greenlighted an extra $300 million in budget support to maintain essential public services, and in June, the IMF approved a new $1.8 billion loan package for Dakar, disbursing $279 million immediately.

Sall likely used the June 2023 disbursement as implicit collateral to convince other lenders, such as the West African Economic and Monetary Union’s regional debt market, to keep loaning him more money. Senegalese authorities submitted internal documents to the IMF in the second half of 2023 that clearly showed overborrowing. In its public December 2023 program review, the IMF identified that a financing “shift” had occurred in Senegal between 2023 and 2024, but it claimed the shift constituted “a debt management operation with no material impact” on Senegal’s debt level.

At best, the IMF failed to carry out the supervision that is essential to its role. At worst, it was pressured to ramp up lending to try to help Sall stay in power. There is some evidence for the latter in the highly anomalous way that the IMF’s reporting acknowledged and rationalized overfinancing, tarting it up as “precautionary liquidity buffers.” Western partners, and France in particular, certainly had reasons for preferring Sall over Faye and Sonko. Sall was a solid Western ally, whereas Faye and Sonko were campaigning on a sovereigntist platform and threatening to leave the French-backed regional currency. At a time when France was rapidly losing African allies to Russia, keeping Senegal close would have been a strong priority.

A DEBT BOMB DETONATES

The IMF and the World Bank are pushing Dakar for talks about restructuring. Yet they have not undertaken efforts to adjust Senegal’s debt service payments or investigate their own roles in exacerbating the crisis; they have merely asked Senegal to create a unified debt directorate and are waiting for the credit crunch to force it to the table. Meanwhile, Sall’s successors, Faye and Sonko, have been harshly punished for the sins of his regime. Senegal’s mushrooming debt problem has hovered over their administration, compelling them to abandon promises to lower electricity and fuel prices, freeze funding for dozens of planned infrastructure projects, impose austerity measures (such as reducing health-care spending by nearly 20 percent), and scramble for new financing.

Worse, the debt crisis has driven a wedge between the reformist duo. Sonko has taken a sovereigntist line and advocated against restructuring the debt (without laying out a convincing alternative), while Faye has preferred to negotiate with the IMF. In May, this dispute blew up their alliance. Faye sacked Sonko from his prime minister role; Sonko resumed his parliamentary seat and was elected the body’s president, with 132 out of 165 members of parliament voting for him. The resulting institutional crisis has pitted Senegal’s executive against its legislature. The latter has the authority to block any budget legislation or debt-restructuring framework that the presidency tries to pass. Sonko warned in June that even if Senegal enters “a crisis involving the dissolution of parliament … there will never be an agreement with the IMF.”

As Senegal’s executive and parliamentary branches remain in a deadlock, the country’s debt continues to grow and the options to address it narrow. The deadlock, however, also reflects the strength and independence of Senegalese institutions, which are nourished by a steady stream of inclusive debate. It highlights the health of a democracy that has been revitalized by a new generation’s participation.

As the leaders of neighboring countries insist that authoritarian rule is necessary to stabilize their countries, Senegal’s democracy stands as a vital rebuttal and applies positive pressure on the citizens and leaders of those countries to seek similar freedoms. Exiled West African civil society leaders often travel to Dakar to pursue graduate degrees, investigate and prepare reports on human rights abuses, and convene conferences on civil liberties. And at a time when West Africa’s rural areas are experiencing deepening abuse and neglect, it is worth noting that these freedoms extend well beyond Senegal’s capital. A few years ago, when Malians and Senegalese people living along the Falémé River mobilized to protest its devastation by gold mining practices, the state responses could not have been more different. Malian forces, siding with miners, beat and detained activists, while Senegal’s Faye issued a decree suspending all mining within 550 yards of the river.

WIN-WIN SOLUTION

Senegal is left with two ugly options: borrow more on worse terms to service its debt or restructure under a new IMF program. Faye is under significant pressure from Sonko’s legislature and the public not to pursue restructuring: the term has acquired a stink, with Sonko calling it a “disgrace.” Restructuring would likely entail highly unpopular measures such as removing fuel subsidies and lowering teachers’ salaries. For many Senegalese people, restructuring recalls the catastrophic structural adjustment programs the IMF imposed on their country in the 1980s and 1990s, which crimped the government’s autonomy and led to cuts in key sectors such as health and education without meaningfully freeing Senegal from cycles of debt and dependence. But in late June, Sonko softened his opposition to restructuring, likely to pave the way for a presidential bid by opening the door for a painful restructuring that will inevitably make Faye look bad.

If Senegal does not restructure its loans, its colossal and criminally acquired debt could crush the economy. Some public salaries are already in arrears, and pensions and energy subsidies could soon face cuts, events that could spark riots and wider unrest. And if the institutional deadlock persists, it could start to erode Senegalese democracy. The IMF already bears some responsibility for the crisis. And now its official insistence on full repayment to creditors is putting Senegal’s macroeconomic stability at risk and undermining the government’s ability to provide health care and education, transition from agriculture to manufacturing, and invest in much-needed public infrastructure.

To pull Senegal back from the brink, Washington should push the IMF and the World Bank to take a significant haircut. Between 2027 and 2031, Senegal is due to pay principal, interest, and fees on its IMF debt amounting to about $891 million; it will owe the World Bank roughly $1.37 billion in debt service over the same period. Taken together, these figures neatly parallel the $2 billion that these institutions lent Senegal in 2023, when it should have been abundantly clear not to. Relief on the approximately $2 billion owed to the IMF and the World Bank could reduce the country’s total external debt service by 16 percent, leaving it with still considerable yet more manageable payments.

The IMF and the World Bank should cancel these payments. These institutions’ principal shareholders, especially Washington and Paris, should urge them to support cancellation and bring other shareholders such as Beijing on board. The IMF and the World Bank likely believe that new oil revenue and increased fiscal pressure (that is, higher taxes and lower fuel subsidies) will allow Senegal to continue to service its debt. They are wrong. Over the past three years, oil revenue has proved disappointing, and much of it may already have been pledged as future sales. Revenues from sharply raising taxes and lowering subsidies will destabilize the country.

Although board members may argue that debt relief sets a bad precedent, the IMF and the World Bank have already helped Argentina on a much bigger scale, and in 2004, the two organizations’ HIPC debt relief initiative, aimed at helping heavily indebted poor countries, granted extensive forgiveness to reduce debt burdens to sustainable levels in Senegal. Canceling Senegal’s debt service would entail trivial losses for these international institutions, which—unlike Senegal—can seek special replenishment from other sources. Beyond assisting Dakar, this relief would benefit Paris and Beijing, its two largest bilateral creditors, by allowing the country to make good on its payments to them. And Paris has an interest in stabilizing Senegal’s debt to prevent a wider contagion. Senegal’s debt crisis threatens the larger regional economic bloc, the West African Economic and Monetary Union, whose shared currency is guaranteed by the French Treasury.

Breathing room would allow Senegal’s leaders to get back to governing and shore up stability in a region that badly needs it. It would also help the IMF and the World Bank retain their reputation for integrity at a moment when such institutions are viewed with increasing skepticism.

Dakar must also launch an investigation into the Senegalese actors responsible for the illegal debt. So far, Faye has declined to do so, likely because he worries his government may have to expose or prosecute political figures whose support he will need in the future. To incentivize Senegal to investigate its own institutions, significant debt relief from international organizations could be made contingent on a public investigation into the illegal debt to ensure a crisis like this cannot happen again and make the country’s institutions even more accountable.

El-Ghassim Wane, a former senior African Union adviser from the Sahel steeped in how good governance helps ward off conflict, noted to us that “the cost of supporting a country that has remained committed to constitutional governance and democratic principles is far lower than the cost of managing instability once it takes hold.” Debt forgiveness would help protect Senegal’s achievements; without it, the country risks falling into a debt trap for years, if not decades. And the region will lose its democratic anchor.

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