113 private newspapers suspended in DRC

One hundred and thirteen newspapers were suspended in the DRC for failing to register with the Ministry of Communication, the Kinshasa-based free press NGO Journaliste en danger (JED) told IRIN. The minister of communication, Dominique Sakombi Inongo, took the decision last Friday, following a warning issued in September urging newspapers which had not paid administrative rights owed to the Direction generale des recettes administrative et domaniales (DGRAD) or completed administrative duties at the ministry of communication to do so.

JED believes that the newspapers will be allowed to resume publication once they have abided by governmental regulations, while pointing out that “90 percent of the banned newspapers are likely to be ‘ghost publications, existed solely by name, and whose first edition was most often the last”. The organisation however deplores the banning of newspapers whose editors are jailed for “press offences”, and did not therefore have time to complete the required administrative procedure.