(JED/IFEX) – In the early evening of 14 June 2006, Pierre-Sosthène Kambidi, a journalist with the privately-owned radio station Concorde FM and a JED correspondent, was granted a provisional release by the Tshikapa Peace Tribunal. Tshikapa is the second city of the Western Kasaï Province (central Democratic Republic of Congo). After having returned home, the […]
(JED/IFEX) – In the early evening of 14 June 2006, Pierre-Sosthène Kambidi, a journalist with the privately-owned radio station Concorde FM and a JED correspondent, was granted a provisional release by the Tshikapa Peace Tribunal. Tshikapa is the second city of the Western Kasaï Province (central Democratic Republic of Congo). After having returned home, the journalist told JED that he had posted 20,000 Congolese francs (approx. US$ 50) in bail. The journalist is prohibited from leaving Tshikapa and must make himself available to the courts at any time.
JED applauds Kambidi’s release on bail, but still urges that all the charges against him be dropped, since, by denouncing the police harassment in his reporting, he was simply doing his job. Arrested on 8 June 2006, Kambidi was sentenced 48 hours later to three months in prison and a fine of 150 Congolese francs (approx. US$ 350). Following this unfair trial, he was immediately incarcerated. The Tshikapa Peace Tribunal president, Aimé Zangisi, found the journalist guilty of defamation against the local commander of the national police mobile intervention squad, Pierre Kidogo. Without providing a single piece of evidence, Kidogo accused the journalist of having made slanderous allegations against him during the 7 June news edition of his radio show.
