Democratic Republic of Congo

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and Journalist in Danger (JED) have written to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) justice and human rights minister Luzolo Bambi Lessa about two separate cases on November 2 in which journalists were given jail sentences in absentia on defamation charges. The two organizations said they did not oppose the fact that defamation actions...

Twenty-nine members of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), a worldwide coalition of press freedom groups, have voiced their support for the open letter which fellow IFEX members Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) and Journalist in Danger (JED), its partner organisation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, sent to President Joseph Kabila August 30. Voicing concern about the...

Jullson Eninga, the editor of the daily Le Journal in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was released Tuesday, one day after the Kinshasa/Kalamu high court acquitted him of treason on the grounds that neither the facts of the case nor the legality of the charge had been established. “We are delighted that Eninga is finally free, especially as there was no basis for the charge on which he was placed...

Authorities arrested a journalist on Tuesday on criminal defamation charges in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Hours earlier, in an unrelated incident, armed men briefly forced the city’s three main opposition broadcasters off the air, according to local journalists and news reports. Pascal Mulunda, editor of weekly Le Monitor, has been held in Kinshasa's Penitentiary and...

Following Monday’s murder of freelance cameraman Patient Chebeya in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called for a renewed commitment from the government to solidly investigate and prosecute those who kill journalists. Armed men in military uniforms jumped Chebeya, around 10 p.m. as his wife let him in his house in the volatile eastern city of Beni...

One of the main suspects in the November 2008 murder of Radio Okapi journalist Didace Namujimbo, Corp Sébastien Tandema, escaped from a cell in the 10th Military Region’s headquarters in the eastern city of Bukavu Monday, just five days after he was arrested, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) and Journalist en Danger (JED) have reported. When he appeared before military prosecutors a few days after...

On the eve of the first anniversary of Radio Okapi journalist Didace Namujimbo’s murder in Bukavu, the capital of the eastern province of Sud-Kivu, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) and Journalist in Danger (JED) have condemned the lack of action on the part of the military officers in charge of the investigation. Namujimbo was killed by a single shot to the head as he was returning home at around 9...

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo must aggressively investigate threats made against three radio reporters in the eastern city of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Delphie Namuto and Caddy Adzuba of UN-sponsored broadcasting network Radio Okapi and Jolly Kamuntu of local station Radio Maendeleo were named in an anonymous...

Following the brutal murder on Sunday of radio journalist Bruno Koko Chirambiza in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo—the third journalist to be slain in the restive region since 2007—the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on Congolese authorities to end the alarming pattern of impunity in journalist murders. Eight unidentified assailants in civilian clothing attacked Chirambiza...

The National Intelligence Agency has issued a warning to the managers of three local radio stations in the eastern DRC province of Nord-Kivu saying that their stations will be closed down unless they stop retransmitting the programmes of French public broadcaster Radio France Internationale (RFI). “This threat is unacceptable,” Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) reacted. "It confirms that...