(JED/IFEX) – In a letter to Christophe Muzungu, the City of Kinshasa’s interim governor, JED protested the actions of PNC agents, who systematically confiscated newspapers sold by street vendors on several Kinshasa/Gombe streets, including 30 June Boulevard, on Monday 9 July 2001, in the daytime. JED’s letter of protest was copied to the ministers of […]
(JED/IFEX) – In a letter to Christophe Muzungu, the City of Kinshasa’s interim governor, JED protested the actions of PNC agents, who systematically confiscated newspapers sold by street vendors on several Kinshasa/Gombe streets, including 30 June Boulevard, on Monday 9 July 2001, in the daytime. JED’s letter of protest was copied to the ministers of the interior, communications and human rights, as well as to the Congolese National Police’s (Police nationale congolaise, PNC) inspector-general.
JED urged the City of Kinshasa’s governor to see to it that such practices are ended immediately, and that the authors of the newspaper seizures are identified and punished.
The organisation reminded the governor that no current legal text in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) forbids street sales of newspapers. In fact, Article 13 of Law 96-002 of 22 June 1996, which lays down the modalities of the exercise of press freedom in the DRC, stipulates that “the state has an obligation to guarantee the right to information.”
JED believes that these police actions constitute a serious attack on the free circulation of information, which is guaranteed by all the ad hoc legal instruments to which the DRC is a signatory, notably Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
According to information received by JED, the police officers who confiscated the newspapers held a document from their superiors barring the sale of foodstuffs and other commercial retail articles along public highways.
