Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have released five journalists of privately-owned Raga TV, after they were arrested on November 19 and held for 24 hours at an undisclosed location, according to Reporters sans Frontières (RSF).
“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 (AFP). “On the other hand we have no news of the journalist who did the interview, who might well be in hiding," he added.
Mbuyi Bwebwe and studio managers Faustin Bwanakawa and Jules Pata were arrested at around 8pm on November 19 when around a dozen armed men in plain clothes burst into the station. The following morning, news editor Rosette Mamba and reporter Robert Muila were arrested in their turn by two men in plain-clothes who introduced themselves as agents of the National Intelligence Agency (ANR).
According to RSF's partner organisation in the country, Journalist in Danger (JED), the five arrests followed Raga TV’s broadcast on the 7pm 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 replacement of Gen Kayembe by Gen Etumba as head of chief of staff of the armed forces chief of DRC reflected “the state of panic around the head of state (Joseph Kabila)." “You don’t change the head of the chief of staff in wartime. Did Kayembe have the resources he needed?” he wondered. Lumbala also criticised the establishment of an office for the head of state within the parliament building.
RSF said earlie, “It is staggering the way the ANR has put more and more people into secret detention in the last few months. The current political and security situation is indeed difficult, but the Congolese government would demonstrate exemplary high-mindedness if, despite the situation, it finally allowed free expression for critical opinions in the media”.
