(JED/IFEX) – Radiotélévision Amazone (RTA), a broadcaster based in Mbuji-Mayi, capital of East Kasai province, in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s central region, was shut down on 1 March 2003 by order of East Kasai province Director Mutonj Mayand-a-Tshibang. RTA officials received notification of the decision via an official letter from the provincial director. According […]
(JED/IFEX) – Radiotélévision Amazone (RTA), a broadcaster based in Mbuji-Mayi, capital of East Kasai province, in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s central region, was shut down on 1 March 2003 by order of East Kasai province Director Mutonj Mayand-a-Tshibang. RTA officials received notification of the decision via an official letter from the provincial director.
According to accounts by RTA journalists reached by JED via telephone, the private broadcaster is accused of airing “unpleasant comments” and “false news” on a local language programme called “Lubila lwa Mukrezaka” (“The Voice of the Digger”). The programme, which aired on 25 February, featured a contentious report on an incident that took place in late February in a mine run by the diamond mining firm Minière de Bakwanga (MIBA), in which several miners died.
According to the government, a group of clandestine diamond miners were buried alive when a mine caved in while they were in the tunnels. Seven miners were reportedly asphyxiated. However, other sources in Mbuji-Mayi who were contacted by RTA put the death toll at about 20. They reported that the miners were allegedly asphyxiated deliberately by a MIBA security team.
Two days prior to the station’s closure, the programme “Lubila lwa Mukrezaka” was banned over the same MIBA mining deaths story.
