(JED/IFEX) – The following is a JED press release: Two journalists transferred to the Kinshasa/Gombe High Court Public Prosecutor’s Office’s cells Kinshasa, 1 August 2001 On Wednesday 1 August 2001, Pierre Kapepa and Rigobert Kwakala Kashama, associate publisher and publisher, respectively, of the Kinshasa-based twice-weekly newspaper Le Moniteur, were transferred to the Kinshasa/Gombe High Court […]
(JED/IFEX) – The following is a JED press release:
Two journalists transferred to the Kinshasa/Gombe High Court Public Prosecutor’s Office’s cells
Kinshasa, 1 August 2001
On Wednesday 1 August 2001, Pierre Kapepa and Rigobert Kwakala Kashama, associate publisher and publisher, respectively, of the Kinshasa-based twice-weekly newspaper Le Moniteur, were transferred to the Kinshasa/Gombe High Court Public Prosecutor’s Office’s cells.
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. According to reports, Kapepa and Kwakala Kashama are 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), criticised the associate administrator general’s management of the RVA.
