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Alert

Journalists covering the opposition's activities caught in the line of fire

(RSF/IFEX) - In a letter addressed to President Pierre Buyoya, RSF expressed its concern about recent attacks on journalists covering the opposition's activities. The organisation also protested the arrest of Gabriel Nikundana, a Bonesha FM journalist. "These Burundian journalists merely exercised their professional duties and should never have been harassed," stated RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. The organisation called for Nikundana's release and the launch of an investigation into the attack on Léon Masengo, another Bonesha FM journalist, Jacqueline Segahungu, a Radio Publique Africaine journalist and Jean-Pierre Aimé Harerimana, a Reuters cameraman.




According to information gathered by RSF, on 10 March 2001, several journalists tried to go to Bujumbura's airport in order to interview Epitace Bayaganakandi, the candidate of the G6 (a coaltion of Tutsi political parties) for the presidency during the transition period. Bayaganakandi was returning from a trip abroad. The journalists were stopped three kilometres from the airport, at a checkpoint set up to prevent G6 supporters from greeting their leader. Two Documentation nationale (Burundian secret services under the president's authority) agents ordered the gendarmes to attack the demonstrators. Masengo requested access to the airport, as he was a journalist. Security forces refused and beat him with a stick. Segahungu and Harerimana's car was stopped at the same checkpoint. Security forces asked the two journalists to leave their car and threatened them with a gun. The two journalists managed to escape but were chased by a Documentation nationale car, until they reached the city center.

On 12 March, Nikundana was arrested at his house and taken to the Documentation nationale headquarters for questioning. In its news bulletins on 9 March, Bonesha FM broadcast an interview with Anicet Ntawuhiganayo, spokesperson for the National Liberation Forces, one of the two main rebel movements in the country.