Patrick Kikuku Wilungula

Two years after transitioning to democracy in historic U.N.-backed elections, the Democratic Republic of the Congo was one of the most perilous countries in Africa for journalists. For the fourth consecutive year, a journalist was murdered in unclear circumstances, this time in the unstable, strife-torn east of the country.

New York, May 22, 2008--Three men accused of killing Congolese journalist Serge Maheshe in 2007 were convicted and sentenced to death, while two others were acquitted in a retrial that ended Wednesday. The trial failed to establish a clear motive for the crime, according to news reports and local journalists.

The historic November 2006 presidential election--the first since the country's independence from Belgium in 1960--was followed by a yearlong nationwide wave of media abuses as the new administration struggled with rampant unrest, insecurity, and impunity in attacks against media workers. Interim President Joseph Kabila defeated former rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba in the divisive 2006 presidential runoff, ending a fragile power-sharing government and marking the start of a difficult transition to democracy.

New York, August 16, 2007—A peaceful march today led by photojournalists in DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, to demand justice for last week’s assassination of freelance photojournalist Patrick Kikuku Wilungula was interrupted and dispersed by police, according to press freedom group Journaliste en Danger and local journalists.

New York, August 16, 2007—A peaceful march today led by photojournalists in DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, to demand justice for last week’s assassination of freelance photojournalist Patrick Kikuku Wilungula was interrupted and dispersed by police, according to press freedom group Journaliste en Danger and local journalists.

New York, August 10, 2007— A respected freelance photojournalist in eastern DRC was gunned down on Thursday evening as he returned home from covering a local conference on environmental protection, local journalists told CPJ.

CPJ is investigating whether Patrick Kikuku Wilungula—the second journalist killed in Congo’s volatile east this year after Serge Maheshe—was murdered for his work