Reporters sans Frontières (Paris)
24 November 2008
press release
Reporters Without Borders notes the release of five journalists from the privately-owned Raga TV who had been held for 24 hours at an undisclosed location. The journalists were freed on 20 November 2008.
"We were all released this evening. We were in trouble over the broadcast of an interview with an opposition figure who made comments seen as offensive to the head of state," Director of Programmes Mbuyi Bwebwe told Agence France-Presse. "On the other hand, we have no news of the journalist who did the interview, who may still be in hiding," he added.
Mbuyi Bwebwe and studio managers Faustin Bwanakawa and Jules Pata were arrested at around 8:00 p.m. (local time) on 19 November when around a dozen armed men in plain clothes burst into the station, seizing the tape for the evening news bulletin and blacking out the transmitter. Shortly after the resumption of broadcasts the following day, news editor Rosette Mamba and reporter Robert Muila were arrested in turn by two men in plain clothes who called themselves agents of the National Intelligence Agency (ANR).
According to Reporters Without Borders' partner organisation in the country, Journalist in Danger (JED), the five arrests followed Raga TV's broadcast on the 7:00 p.m. news of an interview with Roger Lumbala, an opposition deputy and president of the Rally for Congolese Democrats and Nationalists (RCDN).
Lumbala said in the interview that the replacement of General Kayembe by General Etumba as head of chief of staff of the armed forces chief of the Democratic Republic of Congo reflected a "state of panic" around the head of state. "You don't change the head of the chief of staff in wartime. Did Kayembe have the resources he needed?" he wondered aloud. Lumbala also criticised the establishment of an office for the head of state within the parliament building.
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While reading all those stories about journalists you can directly understand the climate within kinshasa where no-one is supposed to lift up their voice to critisize the government regime in DRCongo. President Kabila, Kagame's remote controlled man, is one of the biggest dictator ever. Well known jounalists are reported missing after any radio or TV programme regarding the country situation. You can then deduce by yourself, how many can be missing amongst the population? Life in DRCongo is a real hell but no TV or radio programme can broadcast about it nor any journalist mention it. This is a result of a so-called free and democratic election held in DRCongo after 48 years of independance. The UN, EU, and America should have given chance to Congolese to elect their own president without any imposition. Now we can clearly see that there is no life in DRCongo, the whole population are just surviving instead. It is only God who provides life if not DRCongo people could have dissapeared within the entire territory of this rich land. We are really crying and begging superpowers to intervene in DRCongo before situation become even worse than it is now.