In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Stanis Bujakera – correspondent for Young Africa and deputy publishing director of the Actualités.cd site – remains in detention. His request for provisional release was rejected.
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Arrested on September 8 in Kinshasa, Stanis Bujakera was transferred on Thursday September 14 to Makala prison, despite numerous calls for his release. He is accused of having distributed a false document for an article in Jeune Afrique which implicated military intelligence in the assassination of the former minister and opponent, Cherubin Okende.
Contacted by RFI, Sadibou Marong, director of the Africa office of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), denounces a hostile climate for journalists in the country.
“ Arbitrary detention »
“We believe that the multiple rejections of requests for provisional release from Stanis Bujakera’s lawyers in the Democratic Republic of Congo reveal the extent to which the Congolese authorities are intensifying pressure on journalists and the media in the run-up to the elections.
We are in the case of an arbitrary detention which illustrates the fragility of the free exercise of journalism in this country and this detention also carries the appearance of a strong signal that the authorities probably want to send to all other journalists in the country as for their say: today it’s Stanis, but tomorrow it could be one of you. And it takes mobilization to tell them no. And we believe that the Congolese authorities have a duty to defend the rights of journalists to do their work, even if these authorities themselves do not agree with all or part of what is said or written by journalists. .
Read alsoDRC: reactions multiply as journalist Stanis Bujakera was transferred to prison