(JED/IFEX) – The following is a 31 July 2001 JED press release: Kinshasa, 31 July 2001 On Monday 30 July 2001, Pierre Kapepa and Rigobert Kwakala Kashama, associate publisher and publisher of the twice-weekly Le Moniteur, respectively, were arrested by National Congolese Police Special Services officers. The journalists are being held at the “Kin-Mazière” cells […]
(JED/IFEX) – The following is a 31 July 2001 JED press release:
Kinshasa, 31 July 2001
On Monday 30 July 2001, Pierre Kapepa and Rigobert Kwakala Kashama, associate publisher and publisher of the twice-weekly Le Moniteur, respectively, were arrested by National Congolese Police Special Services officers. The journalists are being held at the “Kin-Mazière” cells in Kinshasa/Gombe. A third journalist with the same newspaper, Marcel Guy Mujanayi, was released in exchange for the two Le Moniteur managers. He was arrested on 26 July 2001.
According to information from the newspaper’s editorial offices, Mr. Germain Mukandilwa is behind these arrests. Mukandilwa is associate administrator general of the Air Authority (Régie des voies aériennes, RVA). Le Moniteur published a series of critical articles about the RVA. The most recent such article, which appeared as a headline in the Tuesday 24 July 2001 issue of the newspaper (no. 034), criticised the associate administrator general’s management of the RVA.
