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Alert

News agency reporter gets five months in prison for criticising government in a bar

(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders has voiced "deep concern about the future of democracy in Burundi" after Aloys Kabura, the state-owned Agence Burundaise de Presse's correspondent in the northern city of Kayanza, was sentenced on 18 September 2006 by a court in Ngozi to five months in prison for "rebellion" and "defamatory statements."

Kabura was arrested on 31 May for comments he made in a Kayanza bar in which he criticised the government and police for kidnapping a score of journalists for half a day on 17 April inside the home of a parliamentarian who had just been ousted from the ruling party.

"This verdict is outrageous and sickening," Reporters Without Borders said. "Firstly, it shows that the Burundian intelligence services tell the police and courts what to do. Secondly, it shows their determination to crack down hard on all those who stray from the party line despite all the attempts at mediation and the appeals for reason. Finally, it means that a sick man who has committed no crime will have to stay in prison."

Kabura learned of the verdict from two judges who went to see him in Ngozi prison. The court had handed down its verdict in a public hearing, but neither Kabura, his family nor his lawyers were present. Kabura has been in poor health since his third week in detention. Requests for his release on bail on medical grounds were ignored.

He had reported being watched and threatened by the police prior to his arrest after he wrote a story in January about sugar smuggling across the border with Rwanda that allegedly received police protection.