(JED/IFEX) – The three journalists who were arrested on 31 December 2001 in Kinshasa have been released. Freddy Embumba, one of sixteen journalists and other employees who resigned from the daily “L’Avenir”, was released on Wednesday 2 January 2002 at 3:45 p.m. (local time). He told JED that the L’Avenir Group was unable to prove […]
(JED/IFEX) – The three journalists who were arrested on 31 December 2001 in Kinshasa have been released.
Freddy Embumba, one of sixteen journalists and other employees who resigned from the daily “L’Avenir”, was released on Wednesday 2 January 2002 at 3:45 p.m. (local time). He told JED that the L’Avenir Group was unable to prove that he had taken a cellular phone and a press card with him when he resigned from the newspaper.
As for Guy Kasongo Kilembwe and Vicky Bolingola, editor-in-chief and newsroom secretary from the Kinshasa-based satirical newspaper “Pot-Pourri”, respectively, the State Security Court’s prosecutor released them on Thursday 3 January at around 5:00 p.m. (local time). No official reason was given to explain their sudden and unexpected release from detention.
The two journalists were arrested on 31 December by Congolese National Police (Police nationale congolaise, PNC) Special Services agents and taken to the State Security Court in Kinshasa / Lingwala, where they were charged with “threatening state security” and “insulting the head of state’s person”. They spent forty-eight hours detained in Kinshasa Provincial Police (Inspection provinciale de Kinshasa, IPK, formerly Circo) cells.
The PNC Special Services had based their accusations on two articles that were published in the Monday 31 December edition (no. 104) of “Pot-Pourri”. The first article was titled, “Because of the current leaders’ incapability and incompetence…hunger continues in 2002”. In the article, the newspaper stated that, “… the holiday season is [being] marked by serious depression. The nativity offered signs of this. And New Year’s 2002 is being spent in a mood of reflection. All the while, Kabila II, the operetta general-major, who was parachuted in as head of state, promises to orchestrate miracles in Katanga, just as Kabila I did.” The newspaper’s use of the term “Operetta general-major” appears to have particularly angered the PNC Special Services.
The second article was titled, “Assessment of a pseudo-power that was mysteriously bequeathed to a child. Kabila II has committed political ‘suicide’.” The article reviewed President Joseph Kabila’s first year in power and was accompanied by a caricature of a young man with a noose around his neck. The article stated that “[Kabila’s] year as head of the DRC [was] marked by the poverty which is increasingly spreading its shadow across the country and the war that his government could end if it demonstrated a small measure of political will.”
