(JED/IFEX) – Joseph Nkinzo, director of Radio Sahuti ya Rehema (“The Voice of Mercy”), which airs in Bukavu, was released from custody on 29 May 2003. Bukavu is the main town in South Kivu province, located in the eastern half of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The area is controlled by the Congolese Rally […]
(JED/IFEX) – Joseph Nkinzo, director of Radio Sahuti ya Rehema (“The Voice of Mercy”), which airs in Bukavu, was released from custody on 29 May 2003. Bukavu is the main town in South Kivu province, located in the eastern half of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The area is controlled by the Congolese Rally for Democracy (Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie, RCD/Goma) rebel group.
In a telephone conversation with JED on 2 June, Nkinzo said that during his detention he was whipped for 45 minutes by the assistant director of the security services, an otherwise unidentified man named “Zébédé” who is reportedly the brother-in-law of Bizima Karaha, one of the rebel group’s leaders.
The journalist told JED that his station continues to broadcast, but the station’s management has gone into hiding because they refuse to accept the demands put forward by the RCD/Goma at the time of Nkinzo’s release. The rebel group had set a number of conditions for the station director’s release. These included Nkinzo’s dismissal, the resumption of broadcasts of RTNC/Bukavu and Goma (Congolese National Radio-television, a public channel controlled by the RCD/Goma) news bulletins, the restoration of a programming schedule dedicated to evangelisation, and the cancellation of all programmes focused on politics, including “Paix et réconciliation” (“Peace and Reconciliation”).
JED recalls that RCD/Goma intelligence agents arrested Nkinzo on 28 May and detained him for 36 hours. The move against the station director came in response to several issues that angered the RCD/Goma. The rebel group’s list of grievances against Radio Sahuti ya Rehema included the station’s refusal to retransmit RTNC news bulletins (approx. 150 minutes a day), the airing of news about massacres and rapes committed by armed groups in the villages near Bukavu, the station’s association with the non-governmental human rights organisation “Héritiers de la justice” (“Heirs of Justice”), and changes to the station’s programming schedule which were deemed contrary to the rebel group’s “Guidelines for opening a radio or television station in liberated regions”.
