(JED/IFEX) – Achille Ekele Ngolima, publication director of the Kinshasa-based satirical newspaper “Pot-Pourri”, was released from Kinshasa’s Penitentiary and Re-education Centre (Centre pénitentiaire et de réeducation de Kinshasa, CPRK, former Makala Central Prison) on 15 August 2002, at approximately 2:00 p.m. (local time). He had been detained at the CPRK since 31 July. Ekele told […]
(JED/IFEX) – Achille Ekele Ngolima, publication director of the Kinshasa-based satirical newspaper “Pot-Pourri”, was released from Kinshasa’s Penitentiary and Re-education Centre (Centre pénitentiaire et de réeducation de Kinshasa, CPRK, former Makala Central Prison) on 15 August 2002, at approximately 2:00 p.m. (local time). He had been detained at the CPRK since 31 July. Ekele told JED that his release followed an order by the Kinshasa/Gombe High Court Prosecutor’s Office that legal action against him be dropped definitively.
Ekele was arrested further to the filing of a complaint by Joseph Olenghankoy, president of the opposition party FONUS (Forces novatrices pour l’union et la solidarité). The opposition leader has since withdrawn his complaint.
Two other journalists, Delly Bonsange and Raymond Kabala, publisher and publication director of the newspaper “Alerte Plus”, respectively, remain imprisoned and are expected to appear before a public hearing at the CPRK on 16 August. Minister of Security and Public Order Mwenze Kongolo is suing them for having directed “harmful accusations” against him.
In a 9 August letter to Appeals Court and Court of Military Order (Cour d’ordre militaire, COM) prosecutors, Justice Minister Ngele Masudi denounced the systematic arrests of journalists and called for the punishment of magistrates and judicial police officers who unfairly arrest journalists and place them in preventive detention solely based on the filing of complaints by individuals who feel wronged by news stories that are published in the press.
