(JED/IFEX) – The following is a 9 June 2005 JED press release: Kinshasa, 9 June 2005 On 9 June 2005, Roger-Casimir Ntwite, provincial coordinator for the Congolese Association of Community Radio Stations (Association des Radios Communautaires et Associatives du Congo, ARCO) and a journalist with Radio Concorde Nationale, based in Tshikapa, the second largest city […]
(JED/IFEX) – The following is a 9 June 2005 JED press release:
Kinshasa, 9 June 2005
On 9 June 2005, Roger-Casimir Ntwite, provincial coordinator for the Congolese Association of Community Radio Stations (Association des Radios Communautaires et Associatives du Congo, ARCO) and a journalist with Radio Concorde Nationale, based in Tshikapa, the second largest city in West Kasai province, was briefly detained by the National Intelligence Agency (Agence nationale des renseignements, ANR). He was questioned for about an hour before being released.
Ntwite was accused of violating the spirit and the letter of a 14 May communiqué from the West Kasai Province Security Council (Conseil de sécurité de la province du Kasaï Occidentale) prohibiting “all political declarations connected to the date 30 June 2005” (the date set by the country’s constitution for the organisation of general elections) and “any gathering of more than three people discussing politics.”
During a Tshiluba-language programme called “Nothing But Politics”, which he hosted on the evening of 8 June, Ntwite provided three political figures the opportunity to speak. Christian Kabasele, a member of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), and Joseph Kapika, of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), spoke live from Kinshasa by telephone. A local official from the Unified Lumumbist Party (PALU) was also featured. The open-line programme focused on the organisation of elections, for which the first deadline, as set by the constitution, is 30 June.
The journalist was released after the mayor of the city of Tshikapa intervened. The local official in charge of the ANR, Timothée Kajangu, told the journalist that many radio stations in the province would be closed due to their “political activism.”
