(JED/IFEX) – Cesar Balume Wetemwami, a photographer and president of the Goma-based North Kivu Photographers Association (Association des photographes du Nord Kivu, APHONOKI), was released on 18 July 2004, at around 4:00 p.m. (local time), from the Goma customs office’s detention centre, where he had been held since 16 July. Goma is the main city […]
(JED/IFEX) – Cesar Balume Wetemwami, a photographer and president of the Goma-based North Kivu Photographers Association (Association des photographes du Nord Kivu, APHONOKI), was released on 18 July 2004, at around 4:00 p.m. (local time), from the Goma customs office’s detention centre, where he had been held since 16 July. Goma is the main city in North Kivu province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
BACKGROUND:
Wetemwami was arrested on 5 July in the Rwandan border town of Gisenyi and secretly held for more than a week. He was handed over to authorities at the Goma customs office on 16 July.
Wetemwami was accused by the Gisenyi security services of being a spy because they reportedly found the phone numbers of Congolese President Joseph Kabila and former information minister Vital Kamerhe, who is currently the secretary-general of the People’s Party for Democracy and Reconstruction (Parti du peuple pour la reconstruction et la démocratie, PPRD, Kabila’s party), in his mobile phone book.
