DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: newspaper editor detained incommunicado for five weeks
The Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of International PEN strongly protests the five-week incommunicado detention of Nsimba Embete Ponte, editor of the Kinshasa-based newspaper L'Interprète. Embete Ponte has been held without any official explanation since his arrest on 7 March 2008. The WiPC fears that the editor is being detained simply for exercising his right to freedom of expression, as guaranteed by the national constitution and international human rights law. It calls on the Congolese authorities either to make known the charges against Embete Ponte and allow him access to his family and legal and medical assistance, or to release him immediately and unconditionally.
Nsimba Embete Ponte, editor of the privately-owned newspaper L'Interprète, based in Kinshasa, has been detained since 7 March 2008 for no known reason. He was abducted by unidentified armed men in the Masina district in the east of the capital on 7 March and detained in a secret location. After a number of days, his family finally located him in a building used by the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) near the prime minister's office in Kinshasa, but have not been permitted to visit him. Embete Ponte is also being denied access to legal and medical assistance.
The official motives for Embete Ponte's arrest and continuing detention remain unknown. According to the local free press organisation Journalist en Danger (JED), the editor had been receiving threats following the publication of a series of February 2008 articles on President Kabila's health.
Another L'interprète employee, a member of the production team, was reportedly arrested by men in police uniforms and a police car on 29 March 2008 and has not been seen since.
Background
Despite continuing serious human rights abuses in the DRC, including frequent imprisonment of and other attacks on journalists, the mandate of the United Nations (UN) expert for the country was not renewed by the UN Human Rights Council at its last meeting in March 2008.
- For more information, see http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/03/27/congo18380.htm
- For general information on the DRC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1076399.stm
- For further information on attacks against journalists in the DRC see http://www.cpj.org/attacks07/africa07/drc_07.html and http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=25402&Valider=OK
Appeals
- Protesting the arrest and incommunicado detention of L'Interprète editor Nsimba Embete Ponte in apparent violation of his right to express his opinion freely in print, guaranteed by Articles 22-24 of the DRC Constitution, as well as the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the DRC is party.
- Pointing out that the five weeks' detention without charge or trial is inadmissible under international legislation that guarantees the right not to be held in arbitrary detention and the right to be brought to trial within a reasonable period (Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights)
- Therefore calling for Embete Ponte to be freed either to face trial at a later date should he be charged with a criminal offence, or, if as suggested, he is held in denial of his rights, that he be released without conditions.
- Urging that while he remains in prison, he be given full access to his lawyers, family and medical attention.
Please send appeals to
President
S.E. Joseph Kabila, Président de la République, Palais de la Nation, Kinshasa-Gombe, République Démocratique du Congo
Fax: +243 81 346 4116
Email: pr@presidentrdc.cd
Salutation: Dear President Kabila
Minister of Justice
Georges Minsay Booka, Ministre de la Justice, Ministère de la Justice, Place de l'Indépendence, Kinshasa-Gombe, République démocratique du Congo
Fax: +243 12 20 843
Salutation: Dear Minister
Minister for Human Rights
Eugène Lokwa Ilwaloma
Ministre des Droits humains, Ministère des Droits Humains
33/C Boulevard du 30 juin, Kinshasa-Gombe, République Démocratique du Congo
Email: min_droitshumains@yahoo.fr
- Please also send appeals to Congolese diplomatic representatives in your country.
- Please send appeals immediately. Check with International PEN if sending appeals after 11 May 2008.
For further information please contact
Tamsin Mitchell at International PEN Writers in Prison Committee
Brownlow House, 50-51 High Holborn, London WC1V 6ER
Tel: +44 (0) 207 405 0338
Fax +44 (0) 207 405 0339
Email: tamsin.mitchell@internationalpen.org.uk