Mbuji-Mayi - A gathering of some 100 journalists on 31 May 2007 in the capital of East Kasai province, DRC, was violently broken up by police led by Commander Jean-Claude Kabeya, also known as "Shegué". Journalists were beaten and one of them, Luboya Nokia of Radio Mont Carmel, was seriously injured and taken to Bonzola Hospital in Mbuji-Mayi. Other journalists told Journaliste en Danger (JED), a media watchdog organisation, that they lost work-related equipment during the attack.
About 100 journalists representing all types of media outlets had gathered for an extraordinary general assembly on 31 May at 2:30 p.m. (local time) at a bar, "La Primature", in the Diulu neighbourhood. According to information obtained by JED, the goal of the meeting was to suspend the local coordinator of the Congo Press Union (Union de la presse du Congo, UNPC), who was reportedly guilty of badly managing the Union and of misappropriating funds.
During the meeting, the journalists noticed that there were non-journalists in the room, whom they asked to leave. It was just after these intruders, who had been identified as security service agents, were expelled from the meeting that police, who had arrived in two vehicles, burst into the bar. The police commander ordered his men to disperse all the journalists in the room.
The police used force to do so, an action that has outraged the organisation, which has asked the minister of the interior, decentralisation and territorial security, General Denis Kalume Numbi, and the general inspector of police, Daniel Katsuva, to prosecute Commander Jean-Claude Kabeya and all the police officers who took part in the operation. JED pointed out that the raid violated the rights guaranteed to citizens by the Constitution of the republic.
Source: IFEX
