(JED/IFEX) – According to information received by JED and confirmed in issue 1262 of the daily “L’Avenir”, dated Thursday 19 July 2001, three persons – including an inspector named Konde, from the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s Criminal Investigation Department (Police judiciaire des parquets, PJP) – burst into the Kinshasa/Matete home of Joachim Diana Gikupa, the newspaper’s […]
(JED/IFEX) – According to information received by JED and confirmed in issue 1262 of the daily “L’Avenir”, dated Thursday 19 July 2001, three persons – including an inspector named Konde, from the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s Criminal Investigation Department (Police judiciaire des parquets, PJP) – burst into the Kinshasa/Matete home of Joachim Diana Gikupa, the newspaper’s publication director, on Wednesday 18 July at 5:00 a.m. (local time).
The said persons thoroughly searched each room of the journalist’s home, even going as far as overturning his bed. The three persons were reportedly looking for Diana, who was covering events in Brazzaville (Republic of Congo) at the time.
Quoting Diana’s wife, “L’Avenir” reported that the three visitors blamed the journalist for “playing with the head of state,” and that it was the president himself who allegedly “asked that they search every corner” to find the journalist.
The previous evening, Diana and other “L’Avenir” managers were summoned to the PJP in Kinshasa/Gombe, to be “heard on a subject of which they [were to] be informed.” Fearing that they would be imprisoned immediately, the summoned journalists and employees of the daily “L’Avenir” refused to go to the PJP until they received an explanation for the summons.
Diana was released on 21 June, after being imprisoned for seven days in National Information Agency (Agence nationale de renseignements, ANR) cells. His arrest was linked to “L’Avenir”‘s publication of an article which was critical of the head of state’s cabinet director, Théophile Mbemba Fundu.
