(JED/IFEX) – On 21 June 2003, from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. (local time), officers from the National Intelligence Agency’s Mbuji-Mayi branch (ANR/Mbuji-Mayi) detained Pierre Kanemo Ngongani, director of Radiotélévision Débout Kasaï (RTDK). The station is based in Mbuji-Mayi, the capital of East Kasai province in central Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). According to information […]
(JED/IFEX) – On 21 June 2003, from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. (local time), officers from the National Intelligence Agency’s Mbuji-Mayi branch (ANR/Mbuji-Mayi) detained Pierre Kanemo Ngongani, director of Radiotélévision Débout Kasaï (RTDK). The station is based in Mbuji-Mayi, the capital of East Kasai province in central Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
According to information obtained by JED, the ANR accused the RTDK of broadcasting, on 20 and 21 June, a news item saying that Tshivuadi Mansanga was well and would soon return to Mbuji-Mayi. Tshivuadi is a Congolese Rally for Democracy (Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie, RCD/Goma) official in Mbuji-Mayi who was arrested and transferred to Kinshasa a few weeks ago. The news item, which cited a source close to Tshivuadi, asked the population to prepare to give him a warm welcome.
The ANR reportedly demanded that the journalist stop speaking about Tshivuadi because, along with the RCD/Goma, he was preparing a “plot aiming to overturn current institutions.”
JED notes that at a time when the government is negotiating in Kinshasa with the RCD/Goma, a former rebel group, to set up transitional institutions in accordance with the comprehensive agreement signed by all warring parties in the DRC, political authorities and security services in Mbuji-Mayi continue to harass the media and journalists in East Kasai province.
JED asks the government to ensure that East Kasai’s political and administrative authorities put an end to their schemes and respect the spirit and the letter of the DRC’s constitution, especially Articles 27, 28 and 29 which guarantee freedom of expression and information. To act otherwise would be a flagrant violation of the constitution and a denial of the normalisation process under way in the DRC, says JED.
