(JED/IFEX) – Bamporiki Chamira, a journalist with the daily “La Tempête des Tropiques”, was released on 15 June 2004 from Kinshasa’s Penitentiary and Reeducation Centre (Centre pénitentiaire et de rééducation de Kinshasa, CPRK, former Makala central prison), where he spent more than 15 months in detention. Immediately after being released from prison, the journalist visited […]
(JED/IFEX) – Bamporiki Chamira, a journalist with the daily “La Tempête des Tropiques”, was released on 15 June 2004 from Kinshasa’s Penitentiary and Reeducation Centre (Centre pénitentiaire et de rééducation de Kinshasa, CPRK, former Makala central prison), where he spent more than 15 months in detention. Immediately after being released from prison, the journalist visited JED’s office with his release certificate, which stated,”Bamporiki Chamira, arrested and sentenced on 16 February 2003 by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the State Security Court to 14 months, . . . as leader of a plot against the life of the head of state . . . is released today due to completion of his sentence.”
Chamira’s release came 24 hours after the temporary release of another journalist, Rakys Bokela, publisher of the Kinshasa-based newspaper “Le Collecteur”, which is published on an irregular basis. Bokela was accused of defaming Aimé Luvumbu, former president of the Congolese Boxing Federation (Fédération congolaise de boxe, FECOBOXE), and spent nearly three weeks in detention.
