Newspaper declared ‘enemy of the people’

Meanwhile, the daily ‘Le Phare’ was last week declared “an enemy of the Congolese people” in a government-approved editorial by the state Radiotelevision nationale congolaise (RTNC), the Kinshasa-based NGO Journaliste en danger (JED) reported on Wednesday. The RTNC editorial said ‘Le Phare’ had two choices: “to support the government of national security in its policy of national reconstruction, or to place itself in the ranks of enemies of the people,” JED stated. The night before the broadcasts, the paper had published an article critical of recent economic measures taken by the government, it said. ‘Le Phare’ itself expressed the fear that the RTNC broadcast was “a call to murder”, and to be called “an enemy of the people” could be a prelude to repression by the security forces, the JED statement added. [for further details, go to: http://congonline.com/JED/]