(JED/IFEX) – José Feruzi Samwegele, a 33-year-old journalist with the public broadcaster RTNC 2 (Radiotélévision nationale congolaise 2) was arrested at the entrance to network offices in Kinshasa/Lingwala on 3 April 2002 by soldiers of the Congolese Armed Forces (Forces armées congolaises, FAC). He was taken to a jail in Kinshasa/Kintambo run by the Military […]
(JED/IFEX) – José Feruzi Samwegele, a 33-year-old journalist with the public broadcaster RTNC 2 (Radiotélévision nationale congolaise 2) was arrested at the entrance to network offices in Kinshasa/Lingwala on 3 April 2002 by soldiers of the Congolese Armed Forces (Forces armées congolaises, FAC). He was taken to a jail in Kinshasa/Kintambo run by the Military Detection of Anti-State Activities, Military Intelligence (Détection Militaire des Activités anti-patrie, renseignements militaires, DEMIAP).
As of midday 4 April, the journalist had not been allowed visitors; nor had he eaten.
On 5 April, a JED researcher travelled to the DEMIAP jail to visit Feruzi. Unable to meet with him in person, the JED researcher managed to get a note into Feruzi’s cell. Minutes later, Feruzi answered the JED note.
In his reply, authenticated by JED, the journalist wrote as follows:
“I was arrested at the facilities of RTNC 1 at 11:00 am local time on 3 April 2002 on grounds that one of my visitors had in his pocket an excerpt from a speech delivered by the [opposition] Union for Democracy and Social Progress (Union pour la démocratie et le progrès social, UDPS) during Congolese political negotiations at Sun City in South Africa.”
Before being jailed at DEMIAP, the journalist said he was taken to the Palace of the Nation (Palais de la Nation), seat of the national president in Kinshasa/Gombe, and to the Marble Palace (Palais de Marbre), home of the late president Laurent-Désiré Kabila and his family’s current home.
Feruzi added that soldiers of the FAC who arrested him believe that his visitor “had come to give him the UDPS speech so that it could be read on television.” Feruzi ended his note by asking JED to “do everything” to get him out of jail because his “conditions of detention are deplorable.”
JED notes that DEMIAP is one of the jails that does not fall under the jurisdiction of the republic’s official prosecutor and is one that President Joseph Kabila decided on 8 March 2001 to close.
