(JED/IFEX) – Joachim Diana Gikupa, publication director of the pro-government daily “L’Avenir”, was released on Thursday 21 June 2001 in the late afternoon, on order of an officer of the Kinshasa/Gombe High Court Public Prosecutor’s Office. The journalist was asked to appear again at the Public Prosecutor’s Office on Friday 22 June. Diana Gikupa told […]
(JED/IFEX) – Joachim Diana Gikupa, publication director of the pro-government daily “L’Avenir”, was released on Thursday 21 June 2001 in the late afternoon, on order of an officer of the Kinshasa/Gombe High Court Public Prosecutor’s Office. The journalist was asked to appear again at the Public Prosecutor’s Office on Friday 22 June.
Diana Gikupa told JED that his detention conditions – first in the cells of the National Information Agency (Agence nationale de renseignements, ANR) and then at the Public Prosecutor’s Office Judicial Police (Police judiciaire des parquets) in Kinshasa/Gombe – were extremely degrading and inhumane. Among other things, he reported that at the ANR he was locked in “a cell that only had two minuscule holes for ventilation. We slept on the bare ground and we preferred not to eat because our cell was also our toilet! The detention conditions in the cell of the Public Prosecutor’s Office Judicial Police were even worse . . .”
Diana Gikupa was detained on Thursday 14 June by the ANR. This detention was linked to “L’Avenir”‘s publication of an article criticising the head of state’s cabinet director.
For further information, contact D. M’Baya Tshimanga, president, or Mwamba wa ba Mulamba, secretary-general, Journaliste en danger (JED), B.P. 633 Kinshasa 1, Democratic Republic of Congo, tel. +243 99 29 323, +243, 99 29 345, fax: +243 12 21974, e-mail: jedkin@ic.cd, Internet: http://www.congonline.com/Jed
