(JED/IFEX) – On Wednesday 13 March 2002, at about 11:00 a.m. (local time), Rapid Intervention Police (Police d’intervention rapide, PIR) agents seized newspapers that were for sale at various newsstands throughout Kinshasa. Several newspaper vendors and readers were forcibly loaded onto two vehicles and taken to an undisclosed location. Newspaper vendors told JED on Thursday […]
(JED/IFEX) – On Wednesday 13 March 2002, at about 11:00 a.m. (local time), Rapid Intervention Police (Police d’intervention rapide, PIR) agents seized newspapers that were for sale at various newsstands throughout Kinshasa. Several newspaper vendors and readers were forcibly loaded onto two vehicles and taken to an undisclosed location.
Newspaper vendors told JED on Thursday 14 March that Congolese National Police (Police nationale congolaise) agents had been arresting them over a four-day period. The police operation was reportedly especially violent at newsstands located at the Limete, Victoire, Memling Hotel and Grand-Poste intersections.
The press freedom situation is also deteriorating in rebel-held provinces. On 9 March, Raphaël Paluku Kyana, director of Radio rurale de Kanyabayonga (RRKA) radio station, was arrested in Bunagana, a town located at the Democratic Republic of Congo’s border with Uganda. The journalist was arrested by Immigration Department (Direction générale des migrations, DGM) agents while traveling to Nairobi for a training workshop at the CETA (Conférence des Eglises de toute l’Afrique) Communications Training Centre. The training workshop was funded by the London-based World Association for Christian Communication (WACC). Following the workshop, Paluku was expecting to travel to Mbuji-Mayi (located in an area under the Kinshasa government’s control) to attend a Congolese Community Radio Stations’ Association (Association des radios communautaires du Congo) meeting. He is being detained in a DGM prison. JED recently learned that his jailers are demanding a cash payment for his release. They seized all of his travel documents and other papers.
Two days earlier, Radio Muungano director Wema Kennedy was arrested in Béni (North-Kivu province, close to the Ugandan border) by Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie – Mouvement de libération (RCD – ML) Intelligence Services agents. He is accused of announcing on the air that the rebel movement’s leader was still in Kampala when the inter-Congolese working meetings opened in Sun City, South Africa.
JED urges all sides in the Congolese conflict who are currently participating in the Sun City negotiations to end all harassment of the press and newspaper vendors. JED asks President Joseph Kabila and rebel leaders Adolphe Onusumba and Mbusa Nyamwisi in particular to order the newspaper readers’ and two journalists’ immediate release.
