(JED/IFEX) – The following is a JED press release: The two journalists from the twice-weekly “Le Moniteur” who were arrested on 30 July were released Kinshasa, 2 August 2001 Pierre Kapepa and Rigobert Kwakala Kashama, associate publisher and publisher, respectively, of the Kinshasa-based twice-weekly newspaper Le Moniteur, were released on Thursday 2 August 2001 in […]
(JED/IFEX) – The following is a JED press release:
The two journalists from the twice-weekly “Le Moniteur” who were arrested on 30 July were released
Kinshasa, 2 August 2001
Pierre Kapepa and Rigobert Kwakala Kashama, associate publisher and publisher, respectively, of the Kinshasa-based twice-weekly newspaper Le Moniteur, were released on Thursday 2 August 2001 in the late afternoon.
The two journalists were arrested on Monday 30 July 2001 by National Congolese Police Special Services officers and locked up in the cells of the police station located in the former Regina Hotel in Kinshasa/Gombe. On 1 August 2001, they were transferred to the Kinshasa/Gombe High Court Public Prosecutor’s Office’s cells.
To recall, Kapepa and Kwakala Kashama were being prosecuted for defamation by Mr. Germain Mukandilwa, associate administrator general of the Air Authority (Régie des voies aériennes, RVA). Le Moniteur published a series of articles about the RVA. The most recent one, which appeared as a headline in the Tuesday 24 July 2001 issue of the newspaper (no. 034), accused the associate administrator general of mismanagement of the RVA’s finances and human resources.
