(JED/IFEX) – Patric Musuyi Mungala, a journalist with public radio station RTNC (Radiotélévision nationale congolaise), and Jérôme Ngandu Muyembe, director of television information with the same network, were dismissed and indefinitely suspended, respectively, by RTNC director José Kajangwa. The two journalists are accused of having broadcast the opinions of FECODI (Congolese Diamond Federation) members concerning […]
(JED/IFEX) – Patric Musuyi Mungala, a journalist with public radio station RTNC (Radiotélévision nationale congolaise), and Jérôme Ngandu Muyembe, director of television information with the same network, were dismissed and indefinitely suspended, respectively, by RTNC director José Kajangwa.
The two journalists are accused of having broadcast the opinions of FECODI (Congolese Diamond Federation) members concerning a scandal in which a 267 karat diamond belonging to a private citizen, Ngoy Kasanji, was seized by the Congolese government. The FECODI members’ views were broadcast on both public radio and television stations in late June 2000. This case was front page news in both local and international media.
Ngandu Muyembe had earlier been arrested, on Wednesday 27 June, with another RTNC journalist, Etienne Bambi Kabesa, and taken to the underground cells of the Rapid Intervention Police (Police d’intervention rapide, PIR) in Kinshasa/Kasa-Vubu. They were both released a few hours later (see IFEX alert of 29 June 2000).
