Alongside the media Jeune Afrique and Actualité.cd for which Stanis Bujakera works, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is once again calling for the release of the Congolese journalist, who has been held since 8 September 2023. A number of prominent figures have joined the public campaign. A new hearing in the case will take place in Kinshasa on 12 January.

“Without dignity, there is no freedom, without justice, there is no dignity, and without independence, there are no free men.” These words, which Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, wrote from prison in his last letter to his wife, Pauline, in November 1960, resonate with renewed force today in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Stanis Bujakera – the DRC’s most popular journalist with more than 570,000 followers on X, the Kinshasa correspondent of Reuters and the Paris-based news magazine Jeune Afrique, and deputy editor of the Congolese news site Actualite.cd – has been held in a crowded prison cell in Kinshasa for the past four months because of a Jeune Afrique story linking a Congolese military intelligence agency to the murder of Chérubin Okende, a former government minister turned opposition politician.

“My imprisonment is a test for independent journalism’s future in the DRC,” Bujakera told RSF when it visited him in prison in October. “There is no way I will give in to imaginary accusations,” he added.

Hastily trumped-up charges

Investigations carried out by RSF and the Congo Hold-Up consortium have demonstrated that the case against Bujakera was hastily fabricated by the prosecution.

Arrested on 8 September on the basis of a wanted notice, Bujakera was initially accused of having circulated – and then of having forged – the confidential internal memo written by an official within the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) that served as the basis for the Jeune Afriquestory.

The prosecutor’s grounds for keeping him in prison was nothing more than a technical report by a police “expert” that it requested only after his arrest. No additional investigative action was taken. The only statements in the prosecution case file are Bujakera’s.

The government, the prosecutor’s office and its “expert” maintain that the confidential ANR memo was forged, but they have produced no evidence to support this claim. The court has so far not heard testimony from any witness or expert about the memo and its contents.

RSF, which has conducted one of the two independent investigations into this case, believes that the memo is authentic. This is also the view of the Belgian lawyer engaged by the murdered Congolese politician’s family, who has filed a complaint in Belgium against the head of the Congolese military intelligence agency that is named in the ANR memo.

Technical impossibility

While on the one hand accusing Bujakera of forging the memo, the prosecutor’s office also claims that he received it via the Telegram instant messaging service and was thereafter the first person to begin circulating it. The police expert used by the prosecutor’s office claimed that he identified Bujakera from analysis of the metadata of the photo of the memo shared via Telegram and WhatsApp. But this is technically impossible, according to the Telegram and WhatsApp representatives who were contacted in the course of the investigation that Congo Hold-Up conducted jointly with Jeune Afrique.

As for the IP address from which Bujakera supposedly shared the memo, it belongs to the Spanish company Bullhost, which says it is used solely on an internal server.

Claiming to accede to a defence request for a report by an alternative, independent expert, the court appointed the clerk of the Kinshasa-Gombe appeal court as the “approved expert.”

This court official began his “investigations” without informing Bujakera’s lawyers and after consulting with the prosecutor’s office, which constitutes yet another violation of the defence’s rights. Furthermore, this “expert” lacks the qualifications for the assigned tasks, as the prosecutor’s office has itself acknowledged.

In the light of all these facts and the many irregularities that have marked these shocking proceedings, the one and only next logical step must be Bujakera’s immediate and unconditional release.

Respect for media freedom and diversity and the rights of journalists are as essential as ever in the DRC, which continues to face many political, economic and security challenges in the wake of the elections held on 20 December.

During his campaign for reelection in November, President Félix Tshisekedi said he might “perhaps” pardon Bujakera after he had been convicted. As Tshisekedi prepares to begin his second term, we hope that he will bring Bujakera’s incarceration to an end now, without waiting for this sham trial to conclude.

Without justice, there is no dignity. And Without dignity, there is no freedom.

Free Stanis. Now.

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has seen the file of the police investigation into Stanis Bujakera, a journalist in the Democratic Republic of Congo who is currently being subjected to a trial at which no evidence has been produced to support the charge that he fabricated an intelligence agency memo. The file shows that his detention is as arbitrary as the trial itself, in which the next hearing is scheduled for 22 December, two days after the first round of the DRC’s presidential election.

“From questions aimed at discovering Stanis Bujakera’s sources to the total absence of evidence that he transmitted this memo to anyone, and a bogus expert report about his phone’s ‘DNA’ in the memo, the only ‘DNA’ that exists in this investigation file is that of arbitrariness. We ask the court to quickly release this journalist, who was indicted in a few days without any serious evidence and has been detained for more than three months.”

Arnaud Froger, head of RSF’s investigation desk

If the initial aim was to exclude the Congolese journalist with the biggest social media following from media coverage in the final months of the presidential campaign, it has already been achieved. Stanis Bujakera, the correspondent of French pan-African news magazine Jeune Afrique and deputy director of the independent Congolese news website Actualite.cd, will spend the first round of the presidential election on 20 December in his prison cell in Pavilion No. 8 of Makala prison, a prison with one of the grimmest reputations in Africa. The arbitrary nature of his detention is now apparent from the investigation file at the origin of the trial.

Investigators shocked to find emojis in his phone!

On 9 September, less than 24 hours after being arrested, Bujakera underwent his first interrogation by the judicial police. The allegations were confusing. He was accused of sharing a Jeune Afrique article based on an intelligence agency memo about an opposition politician’s murder. But he was also accused of beginning to circulate this memo on WhatsApp on 3 September, several days after the Jeune Afrique article’s publication. The investigators searching his mobile phones found no evidence that he sent the memo to Jeune Afrique, which pointed out that, although Bujakera works for the magazine, he is not the only source it uses and his by-line was not on the offending article, contrary to custom when he actively helps to provide the information used in a story.

At this stage, he had not yet been accused of fabricating the memo, just of being the first person to circulate it. But then the investigators said they had a “technical analysis” showing that his mobile phone was “the DNA of the document”. However, as an investigation by a media consortium that questioned experts and spokespersons for Telegram and WhatsApp later established, it is impossible from digital analysis of a document  to identify the phone that first distributed it. Curiously, this completely bogus “technical analysis” was already ready although Bujakera had been arrested only the day before.

Referring to a repealed law

The next day, everything seemed to go haywire. Although the investigators had found nothing on Bujakera’s phones, the charges suddenly got more serious. Bujakera was now accused of making a “fake document.” But, paradoxically, the investigators attributed the document’s origin to a mysterious Telegram account, although Bujakera does not even have the Telegram app on his phone.

Even more seriously, a good part of the interrogations now focussed on the identity of the security sources used by Bujakera and Jeune Afrique. He refused to reveal them. His conversations with a Jeune Afrique journalist were also closely examined. And he was criticised for using emojis.

The third day of interrogation, 11 September, began with a reminder of the 1996 law establishing the modalities for exercising press freedom in the DRC – the problem being that this law is no longer in force, because it was replaced by a new ordinance-law on 13 March 2023.

This interrogation session ended with a new, even more fanciful accusation, namely that Bujakera had used a counterfeit government stamp to make the “fake” intelligence memo. This fake stamp was never found. At no point since the start of the trial has the real one been produced, either.

As for the disputed intelligence agency memo, several well-placed sources told RSF in the course of its own investigation that it really was written by the DRC’s leading intelligence agency.

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What with a biased investigation, a sham expert report, a refusal to hear defence witnesses and disturbing comments by the Democratic Republic of Congo’s president, there is every reason to question the fairness of a Congolese journalist’s trial in Kinshasa

Stanis Bujakera, the Kinshasa correspondent of the French news monthly Jeune Afrique, has been detained since 8 September for allegedly forging a Congolese intelligence agency memo about an opposition politician’s murder. He is next due to appear before the Kinshasa-Gombe court that is trying him on 1 December, but his supporters, including RSF, have every reason to doubt that this trial will establish the facts.

A consortium of media (including Jeune Afrique, the Belgian newspaper Le Soir, and the independent Congolese news site Actualité.cd) has just published damning revelations about the prosecution case. A technical expert’s report, on which the prosecutor is heavily relying, is at best very incompetent or, at worst, an extremely crude attempt to prop up the prosecution’s claims.

The supposed expert, police superintendent Jean-Romain Kalemba, says in his report that analysis of the metadata of the image of the disputed intelligence agency memo shows that it came from a “telegram account” with the avatar “@MG.” He also says it was shared for the first time on WhatsApp from the number used by Bujakera via “IP address 192.162.12.04” on 3 September. This was four days after Jeune Afrique published its story based on the memo, which Bujakera is alleged, without proof, to have sent to Jeune Afrique.

Bogus expert report paving way for conviction?

When contacted by the media consortium, a Telegram spokesperson confirmed that it is absolutely impossible to identify the IP address of the sender of a photo since its metadata is “automatically deleted” when sent. The same response was provided by Meta (WhatsApp’s owner). It is “not possible to identify the initial sender of a WhatsApp message,” a Meta spokesperson said. The lack of traceability lies at the very heart of the model used by these messaging services, which are designed to protect the anonymity of their users, particularly under authoritarian regimes. Any expert knows this.

In an additional absurdity, the IP address cited in the “expert report” is actually used by Bullhost, a Spanish cybersecurity company. When contacted by the media consortium, Bullhost said this address was used “exclusively for internal use” and that it was “not possible that private traffic was routed to it.”

Despite the obviously serious doubts about the reliability and honesty of this “expert report,” the court has yet to grant the request by Bujakera’s lawyers to present their own experts’ testimony.

“In this case, the prosecution has not only made serious, unfounded accusations but has also used a clearly bogus expert report that no serious specialist could endorse. The fact that the judge has not yet allowed the defence to present its own experts and that the DRC’s president has himself mentioned the possibility of interceding after Stanis Bujakera’s conviction suffice to arouse our concern about the fate reserved for this journalist at the end of the trial.”

Arnaud Froger, head of RSF’s investigation desk

President Félix Tshisekedi, who is seeking another term in an election on 20 December, gave France 24 and RFI an interview on 16 November in which he referred for the first time to the possibility that Bujakera was manipulated “by making him believe that it was a first-hand document to disorient the investigators”.

This would be consistent with RSF’s revelations about the authenticity of this memo, which, according to our information, could have been leaked in order to settle scores within the DRC’s National Intelligence Agency (ANR).

In the interview, Tshisekedi added: “I will only intercede later, perhaps, if he is convicted, with an amnesty, a pardon or whatever.” Does this mean that the trial’s outcome is already determined? A grim prospect for Bujakera, who has already been detained for three months and is facing a possible ten-year jail sentence.

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns threats and violence against journalists in Nord-Kivu province, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, just weeks ahead of elections. Armed masked intruders have attacked two reporters at night in their homes in Nord-Kivu in the space of a week. The authorities must identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice, RSF says.

These night-time attacks have yet again confirmed the status of Nord-Kivu – where the presence of rebel armed groups fuels endemic violence – as an extremely dangerous region for media personnel.

The latest victim was Nerry Ushindi, a journalist with Radio Télévision Ishango (RTI), a community radio station based in Kasindi, a small border town in the northeastern corner of the province. Three armed masked individuals forced their way into his home in Kasindi on the night of 9 November.

Armed with a gun, machetes and a hammer, the intruders demanded money and Ushindi’s journalistic equipment, and threatened to prevent him from continuing to work for RTI. Ushindi finally handed over this equipment, including two phones, and 400,000 Congolese francs (about 150 euros). Before leaving, they stabbed him in an arm and beat his mother, who was present at the time.

On the night of 2 November, Jonas Kasula was attacked at his home in Goma, the provincial capital, where he covers crime and violence in the city in the political news programme he presents on Hope Channel TV. Four armed masked intruders tied him up, stole his equipment, and threatened to come back and kill him if he did not stop working as a journalist, RSF has learned.

The attacks experienced by Nerry Ushindi and Jonas Kasula in their homes, marked by extreme violence, are intolerable. The assailants clearly sought to intimidate journalists critical of their actions in the area. We condemn these two attacks and call on the authorities to identify those responsible and bring them to justice.

Sadibou Marong, Director of RSF’s sub-Saharan Africa bureau

With just a month to go to general elections in the DRC, the environment for journalism is not improving in Nord-Kivu. Since the start of the year, at least ten physical attacks against journalists have been reported in Basongora community villages in the northeast of the province. RSF is calling on presidential candidates to give ten public undertakings to promote press freedom, including providing journalists with better protection.

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has referred the arbitrary detention of Stanis Bujakera, a Congolese journalist for whom a provisional release request has just been rejected for the fifth time, to the Media Freedom Coalition (MFC), a partnership of 50 countries working together to promote media freedom.

The deputy director of the Actualités.cd news site and correspondent of the Reuters news agency and the French news magazine Jeune Afrique, Stanis Bujakera has been jailed in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 8 September on various charges, above all forging an intelligence agency memo that was used as the basis of a Jeune Afrique story.

The fifth request for Bujakera’s provisional release in less than two months was rejected on 7 November by court in the capital, Kinshasa. As a result of RSF’s referral, the Media Freedom Coalition can now take appropriate action to help end his arbitrary detention.

By means of this referral, we are asking MFC member states to intercede with the Congolese authorities for Stanis Bujakera to be released quickly and unconditionally and for all the charges against him to be dropped, so that he can resume working as a journalist.

Sadibou Marong, Director of RSF’s sub-Saharan Africa bureau

The MFC was created in July 2019 at the initiative of the United Kingdom and Canada. Civil society organisations such as RSF that are members of the MFC’s consultative network can report particularly serious situations or individual cases, such as arbitrary detention, to member states for them to take action.

Bujakera is currently being tried on six clearly trumped-up charges including fabricating an internal memo by the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) and sending it to Jeune Afrique for use as the basis of a story published on 31 August, although the story did not carry Bujakera’s by-line. An investigation by RSF has shown that Bujakera could not have been the author of the memo, which is widely regarded as authentic despite the government’s claims.

Less than two weeks after Bujakera’s arrest, RSF referred the case to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, asking it to recognise the arbitrary nature of his detention.

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has visited a reporter who has been jailed  arbitrarily in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the past six weeks. Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala is still combative and hopes that the law and the truth will soon prevail so that he can be freed.

A reporter for Jeune Afrique, a Paris-based news weekly specialising in covering Africa, Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala, had only just learned that his lawyers’ fourth request for his provisional release had been rejected when he received a visit on 17 October from an RSF delegation consisting of Sadibou Marong, the head of RSF’s sub-Saharan Africa bureau, and Arnaud Froger, the head of its investigation desk. They were accompanied by one of his lawyers, Charles Mushizi.

“The morale is there,” Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala told RSF. “There is no way I will give in to imaginary accusations.”

The journalist is accused of “fabricating” and disseminating a Congolese intelligence agency document that blamed another Congolese intelligence agency for an opposition politician’s death. The document was the basis of a story published by Jeune Afrique on 31 August that did not carry Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala’s by-line. He was nonetheless arrested on 8 September.

Held in Kinshasa’s Makala prison, Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala was calm and combative during the visit although the judicial system is persisting in prolonging his detention despite the absence of any serious evidence in support of the accusation against him. Attired in the yellow shirt that all inmates are required to wear, he spoke with determination when he said the case was also “a test for independent journalism’s future in the DRC.”

“Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala is a professional journalist who has absolutely no business being in the prison where RSF met him three days before a new hearing is due to begin on 20 October. The charges against him are absurd and the decision to keep holding him is insane. The use of such methods to gag one of the country’s leading journalists in the run-up to a presidential election raises grave concerns about the credibility of the conditions in which this election will be held.”

Arnaud Froger, head of RSF’s investigation desk

Makala prison has a grim reputation. It is currently holding more than 10,000 inmates although it was designed for only 1,500. Access to drinking water is non-existent. Dozens of detainees die every year from diseases or malnutrition, according to the Research and Information Group on Peace and Security (GRIP), an independent research centre based in Belgium.

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has asked the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to recognise the arbitrary nature of Congolese journalist Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala’s detention in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 8 September, and to ask the Congolese authorities to free him at once.

“Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala has been held for more than ten days over an article that does not even bear his name. Three months ahead of the DRC’s presidential election, the authorities are detaining this renowned journalist arbitrarily, thereby endangering press freedom. RSF’s decision to refer this case to the United Nations provides the DRC authorities with an opportunity to listen to reason. In a democratic country, a journalist must never be placed in detention for his journalistic activity. Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala must be released immediately and the charges must be dropped.”

Sadibou Marong, Director of RSF’s sub-Saharan Africa desk

The deputy director of the Actualités.cd news site and correspondent of the Reuters news agency and French news magazine Jeune Afrique, Bujakera was arrested at Kinshasa-Ndjili airport on 8 September and a formal order for his provisional detention was issued three days later. He has been held in Kinshasa’s Makala prison since 14 September.

Bujakera is accused of “forgery,” “forging state seals,” “spreading false rumours” and “transmitting erroneous messages contrary to the law” under the DRC’s penal code and digital law in connection with an article published on the Jeune Afrique website on 31 August with no individual reporter’s by-line.

The article cited a report by the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) whose authenticity is disputed by the Congolese authorities. According to the disputed ANR report, soldiers with the military intelligence high command were responsible for the July murder of Chérubin Okende Senga, a former transport minister who was the spokesman of opposition leader Moïse Katumbi’s political party.

If the prosecution limits the charges against Bujakera to spreading false rumours, he is facing up to a year in prison and a heavy fine. But if he is accused of helping to produce a forged document, he could be facing up to 15 years in prison.

In its urgent referral of the case to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on 19 September, RSF shows that Bujakera’s detention violates Congolese law and the DRC’s international obligations, and that it was clearly a reprisal for his journalism – both grounds for his detention to be regarded as arbitrary under international law.

This detention of a renowned journalist sends an alarming signal as it comes just three months ahead of an election in which President Félix Tshisekedi plans to run for another term.

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Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is concerned about attacks on journalists covering the run-up to the general elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo in December, and calls on the authorities and politicians to take immediate measures to protect the media’s work, which is essential to the democratic process.

At least seven journalists have been harassed or attacked by political actors of all sides in the capital, Kinshasa, and the central city of Kananga since the start of July. And one journalist is the target of a criminal defamation case brought by a politician. Journalists’ safety is clearly under threat from the tensions that are being fuelled by the elections scheduled for 20 December, in which Félix Tshisekedi, the DRC’s president since 2019, is seeking another term.

“Every day in the DRC brings its share of violence against journalists. It has become very worrying, especially as some of the attacks are the work of politicians or their supporters. With four months to go to the elections, politicians must respect the crucial role of the media. To help deter and prevent any type of attack against journalists, RSF calls on the authorities to issue and widely publicise a statement to all candidates and parties in the running, as well as to the security forces, reminding them that the media and journalists are essential to the democratic process and that anyone who threatens their safety or interferes with their right to inform and the public’s right  to be informed will have to face the full force of the law.”

Sadibou Marong, Director of RSF’s sub-Saharan Africa bureau

At Kananga airport on 29 July, individuals on motorcycles threw stones at a vehicle carrying journalists, including Congo Web TV’s Trésor Kalafayi, the Forum des As newspaper’s Didier Kebongo and privately-owned Canal Kin TV’s Danou Kefula, as well as Elysée Odia, a reporter for the Yabisonews.cd news site and Jean Pierre Kayembe of Non à la Balkanisation TV.

These reporters had gone to the airport to cover the arrival of parliamentary representative and Envol party leader Delly Sesanga, who is a presidential candidate and who was due to hold a rally in the city. Kebongo told RSF that the men on motorcycles were said to be rivals of Sesanga and that they threw stones at the reporters to prevent them from taking photos of him.

“They deliberately chose our vehicle, which was labelled ‘press’ and some of us were injured,” Kebongo said. “It was only by luck that the police were able to get us out there.”

The government condemned the attack and promised to investigate it, but it was far from being isolated. Actu7.cd news site reporter Frank Kalonji was attacked the same day in Kinshasa by members of Martin Fayulu’s opposition party Ecide, who snatched his phone and accused him of being “a spy for the ruling party.”

Liberteactu.cd news site director Doux-Jésus Beledu was assaulted in the capital at the start of July by a group of individuals believed to be opposition supporters. He said they surrounded him after recognising him. “Then they began threatening me, calling me a pro-government journalist, and one of them threw a metal object that hit me on the head.”

Defamation case

A criminal defamation prosecution is also being brought against a journalist during the run-up to the elections. Pascal Kamanzi faces a possible five-year prison sentence and a fine if convicted in the eastern city of Bukavu on 24 August of defaming Mushi Bonane, a well-known local politician.

Bonane did not appreciate the live political debate that Kamanzi moderated on Radio FAN FM in April, in which a political rival criticised Bonane. Complying with the law, the radio station offered Bonane the opportunity to respond to the criticism on the air, but he refused, suing instead. RSF calls on the judicial authorities to dismiss all the charges against Kamanzi.

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Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo should investigate and hold to account police officers who assaulted journalists Louis France Kuzikesa and Will Claes N’lemvo in an Ethiopian airport, and stop law enforcement officials from intimidating the press, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

On July 30, a dozen men dressed in civilian clothes repeatedly punched and yanked the clothing of Kuzikesa, a presenter and general manager of privately owned CML13TV, and N’lemvo, a reporter with the privately owned news site Actualité.cd, in the Ethiopian capital’s Bole International Airport, according to N’lemvo, who spoke to CPJ, and a statement by a Congolese media rights group.

N’lemvo told CPJ that the men identified themselves as members of a Congolese police unit responsible for the protection of senior state officials while punching Kuzikesa, and said that the CML13TV journalist was too critical of President Felix Tshisekedi.

“The DRC police officers responsible for attacking journalists Louis France Kuzikesa and Will Claes N’lemvo in Addis Ababa’s airport should be identified and held accountable,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in Durban, South Africa. “This unprovoked assault demonstrates just how far Congolese authorities will go to intimidate those deemed critical of the government, both within and beyond DRC’s borders.”

Kuzikesa – who presents a political talk show called “Libre Opinion” (Free Debate) – declined to speak with CPJ, citing safety fears.

Kuzikesa said on Facebook that he was in transit to the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, when the men, who identified themselves as security officers for Tshisekedi, attacked him and snatched his two phones and hand luggage.

N’lemvo told CPJ that he started filming the incident on his phone but the men grabbed the device and started punching him as well. Kuzikesa posted N’lemvo’s video on X, formerly Twitter, showing a group of men shouting at the CML13TV journalist in the airport.

N’lemvo said Ethiopian police intervened to stop the violence and returned his phone, but the assailants continued to shout that they would find the journalists in Kinshasa.

N’lemvo said the reporters delayed their flight home by a day because they feared for their safety, adding that he received treatment in a Kinshasa hospital for pain in his mouth and chest from the beating, while Kuzikesa was unharmed.

On May 22, DRC’s media regulator, Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel et de la Communication (CSAC), banned Kuzikesa from working as a journalist for 72 days and ordered a 45-day suspension of CML13TV’s broadcast signal. CSAC said in a statement, reviewed by CPJ and reported on by local media, that Kuzikesa interviewed two politicians who made tribal remarks that threatened national cohesion.

CPJ’s calls to Kinshasa police chief Blaise Kilimbalimba rang unanswered.

CPJ has repeatedly documented how journalists in the DRC have been arrested, accused of alleged crimes – including defamation and sharing false information – and criminally prosecuted in connection with their work.

CPJ has called for politicians in the DRC and their supporters to respect journalists’ rights to report freely and safely in the lead-up to national elections on December 20, as previous polls have been marred by press freedom violations. At least seven journalists reporting on political candidates were assaulted in three separate incidents in late July.

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Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo must comply with the court decision authorizing Radio Télévision Sarah to reopen and ensure the broadcaster’s equipment is returned, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.

On June 6, a local court of appeal in Mbandaka, the capital of the northwestern Equateur province, declared the closure of privately owned Radio Télévision Sarah illegal and ordered the outlet be permitted to reopen, according to a copy of the court order reviewed by CPJ and the outlet’s lawyer, Pontife Ikolombe, and its managing director, Steve Mwanyo, who both spoke to CPJ by phone.

The outlet has been closed since November 15, 2021. The court order followed a May 30, 2023, lawsuit filed by the broadcaster against the Equateur government, Ikolombe said.

On June 7, Equateur Governor Bobo Boloko Bolumbu sent the provincial Minister of Justice Imbambo Nzobali and armed police officers to block access to the broadcaster’s office, Ikolombe and Mwanyo said. As of Tuesday, June 13, the officers remained outside the office and denied the journalists entry.

“Congolese authorities must ensure that the court ruling permitting Radio Télévision Sarah to reopen is respected,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, in New York. “The nearly two years that Radio Télévision Sarah was kept off the air is an injustice and must not be prolonged.”

A few hours before police arrived at the outlet’s office on June 7, the outlets’ journalists accessed the office and found that broadcasting equipment, including a transmitter, microphones, and cameras, were missing, Mwanyo told CPJ. He said he believed provincial government authorities had taken the equipment as they were the only ones with access to the office since the closure.

In November 2021, Papy Ekate, the Equateur province minister of communication and media, accused the outlet of airing inflammatory programs and criticism of Bobo, and ordered the outlet closed for 60 days, according to Mwanyo and a report by local press freedom organization Journaliste en Danger. On January 15, 2022, the Equateur government extended the suspension indefinitely, Mwanyo said.

During a rally held in Mbandaka on December 21, 2022, President Felix Tshisekedi publicly asked Bobo to accept criticism, according to a report by privately owned website yabisonews.cd.

CPJ’s calls and requests for comment sent via messaging app to Nzobali, Bobo, and Rossy Bolekwa, the governor’s deputy chief of staff, did not receive any replies.

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