(JED/IFEX) – Innocent Prospère Mbumba, provincial director of the weekly “L’Eveil”, in Kananga, capital of Western Kasai province (1000 km from Kinshasa, in the middle of the Democratic Republic of Congo), was arrested on Thursday 30 August 2001. He is being detained in one of the National Information Agency’s (Agence nationale des renseignements, ANR/Kananga) provincial […]
(JED/IFEX) – Innocent Prospère Mbumba, provincial director of the weekly “L’Eveil”, in Kananga, capital of Western Kasai province (1000 km from Kinshasa, in the middle of the Democratic Republic of Congo), was arrested on Thursday 30 August 2001. He is being detained in one of the National Information Agency’s (Agence nationale des renseignements, ANR/Kananga) provincial bureau’s underground cells.
According to information received by JED and confirmed by Boucar Kasonga Tshilunde, “L’Eveil”‘s publisher, the journalist was allegedly arrested by order of the governor of Western Kasai province, Claudel Lubaya. Apparently, Lubaya was disturbed by a report about President Joseph Kabila’s 11 August visit to Kananga. The offending report was published in the 20 August edition of “L’Eveil” (issue 242).
At the very moment when the government has committed itself to releasing all persons who are imprisoned in the country because of their opinions, JED is scandalised to note that the Western Kasai provincial authorities continue to arrest journalists for expressing their opinions. JED is asking Governor Lubaya and the ANR to release Mbumba. The organisation also recalls that another journalist, Freddy Loseke Lisumbu, director of the newspaper “La Libre Afrique”, is currently in his fourth month of detention without trial at Kinshasa’s Penitentiary and Reeducation Centre (Centre pénitentiaire et de rééducation de Kinshasa, CPRK), where he is being held because of his writings (see IFEX alerts of 4 July and 7 June 2001).
