About IFEX:

News by region:

IFEX Campaigns and Advocacy:

IFEX Email Products:

Opportunities and assistance:

Alert

Publisher of suspended newspaper arrested in Kinshasa

(JED/IFEX) - In the early evening of 2 November 2005, Patrice Booto, publisher of the Kinshasa-based newspaper "Le Journal" and its supplement "Pool Malebo", was arrested on Colonel Mondjiba Avenue in Kinshasa/Ngaliema by five armed men in civilian clothes. The journalist is being detained at the Kin-Mazière police station in Kinshasa/Gombe.

On 3 November, JED met with Major Elias Tshibangu and Captain Bitumba, chief of operations and chief of the judicial police officer pool at Kin-Mazière, respectively, who did not allow the organisation to meet with the journalist.

In their respective editions of 16 to 19 September and 15 to 20 September, "Le Journal" and "Pool Malebo" published an article mentioning a US$30 million donation from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) "to the Republic of Tanzania's education sector at a time when a labour conflict in the DRC pits the government against teachers' unions." The Congolese Episcopal Conference was said to be the source, but it denied the information.

On 19 September, the Haute Autorité des Médias (HAM, media regulatory body) suspended the two newspapers for three months on the grounds that the article contained "unverified statements, harmful accusations made with a total absence of rigour and in a quest for sensationalism" and was in breach of the DRC journalists' code of ethics and professional practice.

Since then, the two publications' editorial staff have been in hiding.