Media watchdogs stress need for press freedom

Media watchdogs and other human rights groups observing Africa's political landscape have this year continued past calls for an end to the harassment of a number of journalists in African countries and the release of others they say are imprisoned there. The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and the World Editors Forum (WEF, which together represent 18,000 publications in 100 countries) on Monday called on Central African Republic President Ange-Felix Patasse to the release journalist Mathurin Momet. Momet, the publication director of the private daily Le Confident, had been arrested by plainclothes police on 20 February and accused of "threatening the state's internal and external security, and inciting hatred", the presidents of both watchdog bodies said in their joint letter to Patasse. The media presidents - Seok Hyun Hong of the WAN and Gloria Anderson of the WEF - said the authorities were holding Momet responsible for "several contentious articles", including one published in his newspaper's 19 February edition in which he denounced the conduct of Jean-Pierre Bemba's rebel Mouvement de liberation du Congo. Momet had also reportedly criticised Patasse for failing to rein in the rebels, they said. They said police officers reportedly had also questioned Momet about a 20 February article entitled "Patasse humiliated at the 22nd Franco-African summit". In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a Kinshasa media right body, Journaliste en danger, reported on Tuesday that Raymond Kabala, the managing editor of the Kinshasa newspaper Alerte Plus, was still imprisoned at Kinshasa's penitentiary and re-education centre (Centre pénitentiaire et de rééducation de Kinshasa), despite having completed his seven-month sentence on 19 February. He had been arrested on 19 July 2002 and sentenced initially for 12 months for making "harmful accusations" against former Security and Public Order Minister Mwenze Kongolo. Also in the DRC, seven soldiers arrested journalist Kadima Mukombe on 31 December 2002 and transferred him to the Tshikapa Central Prison on 2 January. He had been accused of "insulting the army", the WAN and WEF reported on 7 January. They said that in a programme focusing on development issues, broadcast on 30 December 2002, Mukombe had criticised local military officials who had been accused of involvement in the diamond trade and allowing their soldiers to steal from local residents. The WAN and WEF quoted witnesses who said Mukombe had received 50 lashes at the time of his arrest and had his head shaved with an old razor blade. On Rwanda, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) protested on Tuesday against what it said was the "unjustified detention for more than one month" of Ismael Mbonigba, editor of the newspaper Umuseso. RWB said Mbonigba was arrested on 22 January after his newspaper had reported on 13 January that former Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu would stand against President Paul Kagame in the next presidential election. "The article was accompanied by a cartoon of Kagame as King Solomon holding the hand of a baby representing the Democratic Republican Movement [MDR, a member of the government coalition], with a sword in his other hand," RWB reported. "Two other people were shown pestering him about how to handle the MDR. The cartoon suggested he was the arbiter of the party's divisions and that he alone could decide its future." On the situation in neighbouring Burundi, Amnesty International on Thursday urged the Burundi authorities to consult journalists and human rights defenders with a view to instituting measures to protect them from abuses. In a statement, Amnesty said freedom of expression in Burundi was "under constant attack". "There is a well-established pattern of harassment, ill-treatment and intimidation of those working in the independent media." It described an attack on the home of the director of Radio publique africaine, Alexis Sinduhije, as a "clear act of intimidation" against a journalist and a station which had spoken out against rights violations and on sensitive political issues, "including corruption".