(JED/IFEX) – The following is a 1 April 2002 JED press release: Community Radio: JED Denounces Government, Police and Tax Harassment Kinshasa, Monday, 1 April 2002 In a news conference on Friday, 29 March 2002, in Kinshasa to comment on its mission to Mbuji-Mayi (main centre of western Kasaï province), Journaliste en danger (JED) denounced […]
(JED/IFEX) – The following is a 1 April 2002 JED press release:
Community Radio: JED Denounces Government, Police and Tax Harassment
Kinshasa, Monday, 1 April 2002
In a news conference on Friday, 29 March 2002, in Kinshasa to comment on its mission to Mbuji-Mayi (main centre of western Kasaï province), Journaliste en danger (JED) denounced the hundreds of instances of administrative, police and tax harassment directed at community radio and television stations, especially in the provinces.
JED noted that the Ministry of Communication and Press has reimposed a requirement to obtain authorisation to publish or broadcast, using the official term “receipt,” even though the requirement was eliminated in Law No. 002/96 of 22 June 1996 governing the press in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Moreover, community radio and television stations must pay just over US$8,000 in order to receive official authorisation to broadcast. JED notes that from this tidy sum, required indiscriminately of all broadcasters, the ministry takes US$5,000 for administrative fees to issue the “receipt” and US$1,000 for additional unspecified “fees” required by the ministry’s administration in each province.
The National Society of Publishers, Composers and Authors (SONECA) also requires an annual fee of US$10,000 from each community broadcaster even though the broadcasters have non-profit status.
As in Kinshasa, JED has observed that journalists and others at these radio and television stations are not immune to questioning by the security services. And a monopoly of state-owned broadcasters, officially eliminated, continues to operate in certain provinces with the tacit assistance of local authorities.
JED has asked the government to reaffirm the end of the state monopoly in radio and television, to eliminate the Ministry of Communications and Press’s US$5,000 tax, and to reduce substantially the US$2,000 tax required by the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications to obtain a broadcast frequency. JED also demanded an immediate end to questioning of journalists who are only doing their jobs.
