Human Rights Watch called on the government of President
Kabila to immediately release five jailed journalists, and to reverse a ban on ten private and
church-owned radio and television stations.
Time and again, the Congolese government and rebels have shown equal zeal in their attempts to suppress free expression in the Democratic Republic of Congo," said Suliman Baldo, Senior Researcher at the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. "These journalists are being attacked because they criticize people in power. That is unacceptable."
In Kinshasa, Minister of Information Dominique Sakombi banned ten private and church-owned radio and television stations, publicly blaming them for their "failure" to abide by a set of instructions that unilaterally define the contents of their programs. The banned stations are Radio Elikya (owned by the Catholic Church), Radio Réveil FM, Radio Malebo Broadcast Channel (MBC), Radio RTKM, Radio Sentinelle (of the independent Church Cité Bethel), Radio Kintuadi (property of the Kimbanguiste Church), Antenne A Télévision, Canal Kin 1 and Canal Kin 2 (owned by Jean Bemba Saolona, a leading businessman and former minister of national economy), and TKM television station. In July 1999, the Ministry of Information prohibited private stations from relaying international news bulletins, until then a common practice in the Congo.
Human Rights Watch also condemned the sentencing on 12 September by the Court of Military Order (COM), of Emile-Aimé Kakese Vinalu, editor of the weekly 'Le Carrousel' and Jean-Pierre Mukuna Ekanga, editor of 'La Tribune de la Nation', to two years in prison. The court on the same day also sentenced Richard Nsamba Olangi, publisher of 'Le Messager Africain', and journalist Nicolas Katako to one year's imprisonment, with six months suspended. COM found the four journalists guilty of "high treason" and "publication of articles hostile to the government."
Sentenced by COM to three years imprisonment since May 2000, another journalist, Freddy Loseke Lisumbu la Yayenga, editor of the newspaper La Libre Afrique (Free Africa), is reported to be seriously ill. His condition requires immediate medical attention. Human Rights Watch calls for the immediate release of all five journalists.
In Bukavu, the capital of rebel held south Kivu province, Jean Pierre Tanganyika, also known as Dudjo, who is a photographer, was arrested after a grenade explosion on 26 August for having taken pictures of the injured victims at the scene. He was detained without formal charge at the local army barracks, briefly released on Saturday September 16, and rearrested again on the same day. His current whereabouts remain unknown.
There appears to be some disagreement in the RCD over the reopening of Radio Mandaeleo which was suspended last year by order of the RCD Department of Information, Press, and Cultural Affairs. Until it was silenced, Mandaeleo, (Swahili for development), was an independent, nonprofit radio station in South Kivu that produced news as well as programs on development, human rights, and other subjects, much of it provided by local NGOs. The RCD authorities formally suspended it on July 30, 1999 after the station ignored for weeks RCD directives not to air its own political news and debates and to relay instead those provided by the official rebel radio. Human Rights Watch appealed to RCD authorities to re-open Radio Mandaeleo, and thus make a huge step forward for free expression and debate in eastern DRC.
On September 14, the authorities of the rebellion allowed Mgr. Emmanuel Kataliko, Bishop of Bukavu, to return to the city after almost seven months of internal exile which were marked by constant pressures from the local population and the international community for his return. The RCD authorities still have to authorize the return of four leading civil society activists who were detained and banished to the distant city of Kisangani on August 29. The RCD reportedly accused them of having passed information about the grenade explosion to the international press.
