JANUARY 5, 2005
Posted: January 27, 2005
Deo Mulima Kampuku, La Référence Plus
LEGAL ACTION
Mulima, a reporter with the independent Congolese daily La Référence Plus, was sentenced in absentia to four months in jail for criminal defamation on January 5, according to local press freedom group Journaliste en Danger (JED) and sources at the newspaper.
Mulima went into hiding after the charge was brought by Guillaume Bolenga, head of the management committee of Cobil Oil in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The journalist was also ordered to pay a fine equivalent to about $140, according to JED.
A court in Kinshasa handed down the sentence in connection with Mulima's December 21 article in La Référence Plus. The article accused Cobil Oil of misusing public funds and said that Bolenga held two incompatible positions—the other as principal private secretary to former Energy Minister Kalema Losona.
Losona was suspended in November following a parliamentary inquiry that accused him of corruption.
La Référence Plus, which was also ordered to pay a symbolic fine of less than $1 to Bolenga, appealed the verdict of behalf of itself and its reporter.
JANUARY 18, 2005
Posted: February 2, 2005
Canal Kin TV
Canal Congo TV
Radio Liberté Kinshasa
CENSORED
Officials cut the transmissions of two private television stations and a radio station owned by Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba—Canal Kin TV (CKTV), Canal Congo TV (CCTV), and Radio Liberté Kinshasa (RALIK).
CKTV and RALIK Director Stéphane Kitutu said that just before the transmissions were cut, Information Minister Mova Sakanyi telephoned and ordered him to take off the air immediately a press conference by Joseph Olenghankoy, a former transport minister whom President Joseph Kabila had suspended because of corruption allegations. In his press conference, Olenghankoy harshly criticized Kabila, according to the local press freedom group Journaliste en danger (JED).
As the outlets went off the air, army soldiers were stationed outside the broadcasting center with orders to prevent "unauthorized access," according to JED. Kitutu confirmed that transmissions were restored on January 21, after he signed a letter promising to respect the law and media ethics.
A memo issued by DRC Information Minister Henri Mova Sakanyi the same day the transmissions were cut states that "religious and thematic" broadcasters should refrain from airing all news and political programs and orders the suspension of all live phone-in programs.
The memo, obtained by CPJ, also stipulates that the president is "sacred" and warns that "any attack on him in the written press or audiovisual media will be sanctioned in accordance with the law." Furthermore, "the broadcast of any program inciting hatred, violence, disorder or slander will also be sanctioned severely."
JANUARY 18, 2005
Posted: February 2, 2005
All Media
CENSORED
A memo issued by DRC Information Minister Henri Mova Sakanyi states that "religious and thematic" broadcasters should refrain from airing all news and political programs and orders the suspension of all live phone-in programs.
The memo, obtained by CPJ, also stipulates that the president is "sacred" and warns that "any attack on him in the written press or audiovisual media will be sanctioned in accordance with the law." Furthermore, "the broadcast of any program inciting hatred, violence, disorder or slander will also be sanctioned severely."
The memo was issued on the same day that officials cut transmissions of two private television stations and a radio station owned by Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba—Canal Kin TV (CKTV), Canal Congo TV (CCTV), and Radio Liberté Kinshasa (RALIK).
JANUARY 31, 2005
Posted: February 14, 2005
José Wakadila, La Référence Plus
IMPRISONED
Wakadila, a reporter with the private daily La Référence Plus, was taken into custody and imprisoned in the western town of Matadi on defamation charges brought by two national oil executives.
In September, a Kinshasa court sentenced Wakadila in absentia to 11 months in jail for defamation and ordered his newspaper to pay a fine equivalent to US$600, the director of Matadi central prison told the local press freedom group Journaliste en Danger (JED).
But André Ipakala, editor of the Kinshasa-based La Référence Plus, told CPJ that neither the newspaper nor Wakadila's lawyer had been informed of the court judgment. The newspaper has appealed.
Mvuemba Ntanda, president of DRC's national oil refinery, SOCIR, and Jacobus Terrablanche, the refinery's vice president, brought the charges, according to JED. The complaint stemmed from a July 17, 2004, article that accused certain SOCIR directors of corruption and of conspiring with multinational corporations to reduce the company's crude oil refining capabilities, according to JED. In recent years, SOCIR has served mainly as a storage facility for imported petroleum products.
JED reported at the time that Wakadila received anonymous phone calls warning him of arrest and saying he chose the "wrong target." Ntanda is the brother of Abdoulaye Yerodia, one of DRC's four vice presidents. Wakadila, fearing arrest, went into hiding in his hometown of Matadi. He was arrested while boarding a bus to Kinshasa.
On February 8, Wakadila was brought to a court in Kinshasa, which granted him a provisional release. He was freed the same day after paying bail equivalent to US$200, according to JED.
APRIL 4, 2005
Posted: April 13, 2004
Journaliste en Danger (JED)
THREATENED
Tshivis Tshivuadi, secretary-general of the Kinshasa-based press freedom organization Journaliste en Danger, received an email containing death threats against him and Donat M'baya Tshimanga, JED's president, and their families. The threats sparked concern amongst JED staff as well as local media organizations.
According to local sources, the threat came one day after Tshivuadi gave an interview to Radio France Internationale (RFI) in which he alleged that politicians in the DRC were seeking to control local broadcasters during the preparations for general elections, scheduled for June 2005.
The first sentence of the email received by Tshivuadi reads "Since you and your friend M'baya continue to betray the nation by your false campaigns against the DRC... we would like to inform you that the hour of repentance is near." It also threatened to hold the journalists' families responsible for "all the evil that you have caused the nation."
"We will see how RFI, the Americans, or your friend Menard [Reporters without Borders secretary-general Robert Menard] will save you," the email continued and was signed "commander Mbonge Munene" which, translated, means "violent wind."
Tshivuadi and M'baya believed that this latest threat was part of a pattern of intimidation against their organization. Over the previous year, they had been maligned by a talk show host on the public broadcaster, RTNC, and targeted by the private, Kinshasa-based newspaper Le Grognon. In a piece titled "Is JED Endangering the Congo?" Le Grogon had excoriated JED's efforts to stop the harassment of 11 local journalists who, in an effort to interview Rwandan officials for a story, were ultimately accused by Press and Information Minister Henri Mova Sakanyi of spreading Rwandan propaganda.
MAY 17, 2005
Updated: May 23, 2005
Radiotélévision debout Kasaï (RTDK)
CENSORED
The provincial governor ordered the closing of Radiotélévision debout Kasaï (RTDK), a community radio station in the central diamond mining town of Mbuji-Mayi, where at least three people were killed in violent anti-government protests. The governor, Dominique Kanku, accused the radio station of inciting violence, but RTDK and local press freedom group Journaliste en Danger (JED) said the station was merely reporting the news.
RTDK director Isaac Lambert Mbuyi Kana told CPJ that armed police surrounded the radio station, ordered it off the air, and told the staff to leave the premises. Police said they were acting on orders from Kanku, but gave no reason and produced no judicial order.
In a telephone interview with CPJ, Kanku compared the station to notorious Rwandan radio station RTLM, which incited Hutus to kill Tutsis during the 1994 genocide. Kanku claimed that statements broadcast by RTDK had sparked the violent protests, but he could cite no specific comments. He acknowledged that he had not prepared any legal order closing the station, but said the closing was a “preventive measure” and he had a duty to protect the population.
Mbuyi Kana denied the governor’s accusations, saying the radio station had simply reported on rising tensions in the town and on the circulation of fliers calling for a two-day, stay-at-home protest. He said the public unrest was sparked by the fact that the town had been without running water for two days, and news that national elections would be delayed.
Under a peace agreement, DRC was supposed to hold presidential elections by June 30 this year, but administrative and legislative foot-dragging has delayed the vote and no new date has been set. A new constitution, adopted by Parliament this week, provides for an election by June 2006.
Demonstrators in Mbuji-Mayi set fire to the offices of the RCD and MLC political parties, whose leaders are vice presidents in the national transition government, The Associated Press reported.
RTDK was allowed to resume broadcasting around 7.30 p.m. local time on May 18, after two RTDK representatives met with governor Kanku.
MAY 28, 2005
Posted: May 31. 2005
Jean Ngandu, Radio Okapi.
ATTACKED
The Committee to Protect Journalists was alarmed by the armed attack on Jean Ngandu, a Congolese journalist for Radio Okapi.
On the evening of Saturday, May 28, as Ngandu was returning from an assignment, several men wearing Congolese army uniforms accosted him in front of his home in Lubumbashi, a city in the southern Katanga Province. One of the assailants told Ngandu, “You talk too much, we’re going to put an end to it,” and shot at him five times, according to local sources. Ngandu, who dropped to the ground, was not injured.
It was unclear what provoked the attack, but CPJ sources said it might have been linked to Ngandu’s journalism for Radio Okapi, a station jointly run by the United Nations mission in the DRC (MONUC) and the Switzerland-based Hirondelle Foundation. Both Radio France Internationale (RFI) and Journaliste en Danger (JED), a press freedom organization based in the capital, Kinshasa, noted that Ngandu had reported on an alleged secession attempt in Katanga in late April.
JUNE 14-28, 2005
Posted: June 30, 2005
Laurent Lukengu Badimanye, KHRT
Léon Mwamba, La Prospérité
Ali Tshitoko, Radio Sumbula No. 1
Casimir Ntwite, Radio Concorde
Jean Delor Kabamba, Radio Lumière
Esaï Musungayi, Radio Universelle
Sosthène Kambidi, Journaliste en Danger
HARASSED
On June 14 and 15, Laurent Lukengu Badimanye, a reporter with private radio station KHRT in Tshikapa, was summoned to the national security agency and asked the names of soldiers he interviewed about discontent in the military, according to the local press freedom group Journaliste en Danger (JED). The journalist refused to reveal his sources.
Léon Mwamba, the Tshikapa correspondent for private Kinshasa-based daily La Prospérité, was detained June 17 and held for 24 hours by security agents, who questioned him about a JED statement reprinted in La Prospérité on June 21. The JED statement reported the security agents' interrogation of Lukengu. Mwamba told JED that agents searched him, stripped him, and threatened his life.
Ali Tshitoko, a journalist with community radio station Radio Sumbula No. 1, was arrested June 28 by security agents and held for more than four hours for reporting on the harassment of journalists, according to JED.
Casimir Ntwite, director of Radio Concorde in Tshikapa went into hiding on June 26 after the governor of Kasaï Occidental province, André Claudel Lubaya, called publicly for his arrest, according to local news reports. The statement came after a broadcast on June 25, during which Ntwite interviewed politicians from the presidential and opposition parties on the postponement of elections, according to Freddy Mulongo, president of the Congolese community radio association ARCO.
At a June 27 meeting, the Tshikapa Security Council named Ntwite, Jean Delor Kabamba of Radio Lumière, Esaï Musungayi of Radio Universelle and JED correspondent Sosthène Kambidi as "agents of unrest," according to JED. The Security Council includes the governor and members of civilian and military security forces.
JUNE 30, 2005
Posted: July 14, 2005
Basile Kokwalet, RFO-AITV
Didier Lofombo, Horizon 33
HARASSED
Security forces harassed and briefly detained journalists covering opposition protests in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa.
Members of the presidential guard arrested Basile Kokwalet, a Congolese cameraman for French public service television RFO-AITV, as he was filming the start of the demonstration, according to a colleague who witnessed the arrest. Agents held Kokwalet at gunpoint, seized his equipment, and took him to the headquarters of the presidential guard.
Security forces also detained Didier Lofombo, a camera operator with the private Kinshasa television station Horizon 33, holding him for about three hours, according to local journalists.
Kadura Kasongo, President Joseph Kabila's spokesman, told CPJ that he instructed police to release any journalists detained while doing their work.
Several people were reported killed across the country, according to Agence France-Presse, as police fired on opposition supporters protesting delays in democratic elections. Elections should have taken place by the end of June, according to a 2002 peace agreement. However, electoral registration has only just begun and Parliament this month voted for a six-month delay in the vote. Today's protests were called by the UDPS opposition party of veteran politician Etienne Tshisikedi, which is not part of the transition government.
JUNE 30 and JULY 1, 2005
Posted: July 18, 2005
Luc Mikomo, RAGA TV
HARASSED
RAGA FM, RAGA TV, and RAGA Plus
CENSORED
As opposition groups protested a delay in national elections originally due to take place by June 30, security forces detained Mikomo, news director at RAGA TV, for several hours in the capital, Kinshasa.
According to local sources and the Kinshasa-based press freedom organization Journaliste en Danger (JED), RAGA TV had broadcast footage of antigovernment demonstrations. The following morning, government security forces cut the signal for RAGA TV, as well as for RAGA Plus and RAGA FM, a television channel and a radio station also run by the private RAGA Group, according to JED. JED reported that security forces also confiscated equipment essential to the company's broadcasts.
On July 1, the High Authority on Media (HAM), a public agency created under the country's 2002 peace accords, ordered a 10-day suspension of RAGA's broadcasts. HAM accused RAGA of "blatantly partial" news coverage, and of broadcasting footage of the protests "without processing," according to local sources. Several local journalists and JED expressed concern that the suspension was politically motivated. On July 11, the stations were allowed to begin broadcasting again.
JULY 11, 2005
Updated: July 28, 2005
Jean Marie Kanku, L'Alerte
IMPRISONED
Kanku, publisher of the private newspaper L'Alerte in the capital, Kinshasa, was arrested on July 11 and charged with criminal defamation.
The charge stemmed from a July 8 article alleging that a DRC official had misused humanitarian reconstruction funds, according to the Kinshasa-based press freedom organization Journaliste en Danger (JED). The article cited a "Norwegian human rights group" for its information.
According to local sources, Kanku was released on July 25, after paying 4,000 Congolese francs (about US$10) in bail. It was unclear whether he would be tried.
JULY 28, 2005
Posted: August 17, 2005
Jean Pierre Phambu Lutette, La Tolérance
IMPRISONED, LEGAL ACTION
The managing director of the small private newspaper La Tolérance was arrested by judicial police, who accused him of "discrediting" a state prosecutor in an article published in his newspaper. Jean Pierre Phambu Lutette was jailed in a cell at the public prosecutor's department in the capital, Kinshasa, according to the Kinshasa-based press freedom organization Journaliste en Danger (JED).
JED reported that Lutette was questioned about a June article alleging that judicial police "terrorized" inhabitants of the southwestern city of Matadi. Police inspectors accused Lutette of obstructing their investigation into who wrote the article, which was published under the initials "G.M.B.," according to JED, one of whose members visited Lutette in detention.
On August 5, Lutette was charged with "insulting a judge" and defaming the state prosecutor, Tshimanga Mukeba. The same day, Lutette was transferred to a Kinshasa prison.
NOVEMBER 3, 2005
Posted: November 8, 2005
Franck Kangundu, La Référence Plus
KILLED—UNCONFIRMED
Kangundu, a veteran political affairs journalist at the independent daily La Référence Plus, was shot dead shortly after midnight by unidentified assassins who accosted him at his home in the capital, Kinshasa. The attackers also killed Kangundu's wife, Hélène Mpaka.
The Kinshasa-based press freedom organization Journaliste en Danger (JED) reported that several masked men approached Kangundu in front of his house, forced their way in, and shot his wife as she tried to escape. When Kangundu offered them money and his car if they would let him go, the assailants replied that they had been "sent to kill him," according to witnesses interviewed by JED whose names were withheld. The assailants took the journalist's mobile phone before leaving.
Kangundu, 52, worked for La Référence Plus for more than 10 years and was well-respected by his colleagues, local journalists said. He covered a variety of topics for the newspaper, including the sometimes acrimonious relations between political parties in the DRC's power-sharing government, as well as business and economic issues.
A delegation of journalists met on November 7 with Vice President Azerias Ruberwa to demand an independent inquiry. The meeting was held after 1,000 journalists and other media workers took part in a silent demonstration through the streets of Kinshasa. The government said it had detained two suspects and promised a full inquiry.
DECEMBER 2, 2005
Posted December 8, 2005
Patrice Booto, Le Journal and Pool Malebo
IMPRISONED
Security forces arrested Patrice Booto, publisher of the thrice-weekly Le Journal and its sister publication, Pool Malebo. Booto was detained at a police station in the capital, Kinshasa, according to local press freedom organization Journaliste en danger (JED). On November 10, Booto was transferred to the state security court, where he was charged the following day with publishing "false rumors." He was questioned about articles published in the two newspapers in mid-September that claimed that the DRC government had given a large sum of money to Tanzanian education agencies while Congolese teachers were on strike for more pay.
Le Journal and Pool Malebo were suspended for three months in September by the independent but officially sanctioned High Authority on Media (HAM), over the same reports. Some local sources suspected that the HAM's action was the product of political pressure.
Representatives from JED were able to meet with the jailed journalist on November 9. He said he had been forced at gunpoint to reveal his source for the story and that the source was arrested, JED reported. The name of the source was not revealed.