(JED/IFEX) – On 29 October 2006, the Bumba-based and privately-owned Radio Boboto, which is close to the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), was ransacked by unidentified persons. Bumba is a city located in the north of the Equator province. According to information obtained by JED, during the polling operations, supporters of Jean-Pierre Bemba’s […]
(JED/IFEX) – On 29 October 2006, the Bumba-based and privately-owned Radio Boboto, which is close to the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), was ransacked by unidentified persons. Bumba is a city located in the north of the Equator province.
According to information obtained by JED, during the polling operations, supporters of Jean-Pierre Bemba’s Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) had reportedly surprised the head of a polling office with voting papers already marked in favour of the outgoing President, Mr. Joseph Kabila. This disclosure incited the wrath of Bemba’s supporters, who ransacked the polling office and Radio Boboto station.
Furthermore, in Tshikapa, the second largest city in western Kasaï Province, the local station Radio Liberté, privately-owned by Jean Pièrre Bemba, was besieged on 29 October 2006 by military officers who shot bullets into the air to threaten journalists into stopping their broadcasts.
Upon learning of the threats to the station and its personnel, several people and some police officers, sent by the city’s mayor, rushed to the scene to protect the radio station.
