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The state-run media regulatory body, the National Communication Council, has urged the transitional government in Burundi to cease the "harassment and intimidation" of journalists in the country, a local human rights advocacy organisation, Iteka, reported.
The council stated on Thursday that the public prosecutor’s office ban on the media publishing information on the killing, in November 2001, of the World Health Organisation's head of operations in Burundi, Dr Kassi Manlan, was "a violation of press freedom".
The council said it was within "the full rights" of journalists to investigate any matter of public interest and publish their findings, provided they did so within the limits of Burundi law, Iteka reported. The council added that the summoning and interrogation of journalists working for Radio Publique Africaine (RPA), which included forcing them to wait for several hours before being attended to, constituted a form of "police harassment".
The council added that a journalist was only obliged to reveal confidential sources of information to a competent judicial authority - a category into which the public prosecutor's office does not fall, Iteka reported. The ministry, therefore, has no legal right to force journalists to divulge such information.
In a statement on 23 May, Iteka expressed concern over the Burundi government's "restriction of civil liberties". It referred to a meeting held by journalists on 16 May at which the state prosecutor and the defence minister issued "threats". During the meeting, the prosecutor banned RPA from reporting on investigations into the Manlan murder, and the defence minister ordered journalists to desist from interviewing Burundi rebels while ceasefire negotiations were in progress.
Iteka said prohibiting coverage of investigations into Manlan’s death stimulated the phenomenon of impunity that was "eroding" Burundi society, and added that the ban on interviewing rebels failed to conform with media laws and the journalistic code of ethics, whose principal mission was to inform the public.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
