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Human Rights Minister Leonard She Okitundu has refuted that the recent release of 156 political prisoners in the DRC, on the order of President Laurent-Desire Kabila, was in any way dictated by external influences, specifically that of the US. "The people who are claiming that do not know the president. He is a man of principle who has a very strong character.
Nobody can impose anything on the president," Congolese television quoted Okitundu as saying. He denied in particular that the releases, announced at the end of a forum of the demobilisation of child soldiers and the promotion of human rights in Kinshasa on 10 December, had anything to do
with the arrival in Kinshasa on a Great Lakes fact-finding tour of US Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke. "We are totally astonished to hear such claims, which are unfounded. The decision was made without any external influence," Okitundu added.
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