(JED/IFEX) – In the early evening of Wednesday 9 February 2000, three armed men in military dress seized Modeste Mutinga Mutuishayi’s car at a crossroads in Kinshasa/Limete. Mutinga is publisher of the Kinshasa daily “Le Potentiel”. The attackers said that they were searching for Mutinga (who was not in his car at the time). After […]
(JED/IFEX) – In the early evening of Wednesday 9 February 2000, three armed men in military dress seized Modeste Mutinga Mutuishayi’s car at a crossroads in Kinshasa/Limete. Mutinga is publisher of the Kinshasa daily “Le Potentiel”.
The attackers said that they were searching for Mutinga (who was not in his car at the time). After seriously beating the driver of the car, they drove off with him. The driver was thrown onto the back seat of the car and one of the attackers sat on him. Driving at a very high speed in an undisclosed direction, the armed men abandoned Mutinga’s seriously damaged car in a deserted area in Kinshasa/Lingwala at approximately 9:00 p.m. (local time). Before fleeing, they once again seriously beat the driver.
In a letter to the ministers of the interior, human rights and information, JED protested this barbaric incident. The organisation demanded that an investigation be launched immediately, that the attackers be sought and tried and that Mutinga’s security be guaranteed.
Mutinga was part of the delegation of journalists and other press managers who accompanied President Laurent-Désiré Kabila to New York in January, on the occasion of the United Nations Security Council’s special session on the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Upon his return to the country, Mutinga published a series of articles, including an exclusive interview with Emile Ilunga, president of the rebel movement Congolese Rally for Democracy (Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie, RCD/Goma).
