Kinshasa — The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to release Ali Male, a reporter with the privately owned En Quete News site and Kinshasa-based Kin24 TV, who was arrested on December 8 over a report about an army colonel.

"DRC authorities must release Ali and cease detaining journalists for their work," said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo. "Lawmakers in the DRC should reform the country's laws to ensure that a dispute over a publication does not lead to a journalist being threatened or arrested."

Ali received several phone threats from unknown individuals after the article's October 5 publication, who said that he would end up in either a cemetery or a prison if he continued to report on the issue, the journalist's wife, Arlette Kusa, told CPJ.

On December 8, plain clothes officers working for the public prosecutor arrested Ali at his home in the capital, Kinshasa, in front of Kusa and their children, forced him into a vehicle, and detained him at the prosecutor's office near Matete High Court, Kusa and journalist Amen Dimwani, who is following the case, told CPJ.

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Ali Male in detention at the prosecutor's office in Kinshasa. (Photo: Arlette Kusa)

Kusa and Dimwani said that the officers questioned Ali about the report, which said an unnamed colonel had turned the family residence into a bar, disturbing neighbors with loud music and that, separately, he had ordered the arrest of two people who were mistreated in detention.

Ali's lawyer, Frida Mambenga, told CPJ that the colonel had sued Ali for defamation and the prosecutor had asked for 1.1 million francs ($480) in bail.

On December 10, the prosecutor, Ali, and the colonel met to discuss the case but the journalist was not released, Kusa said.

Communications minister Patrick Muyaya did not answer CPJ's call to request comment.