A global press freedom watchdog on Tuesday expressed outrage over a Burundi court’s sentence of five months in prison to a journalist for criticising the government and national police.
Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) voiced ”deep concern about the future of democracy in Burundi” after Aloys Kabura was convicted and sentenced on Monday for ”rebellion” and ”defamatory statements”.
”This verdict is outrageous and sickening,” it said in a statement.
Kabura, a reporter with the state-run Burundi News Agency, had criticised police for an April incident in which they held 20 journalists for hours and beat up others during a press conference at the home of a politician.
The politician had been ousted from government after making corruption allegations against senior members of President Pierre Nkurunziza’s ruling Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) party.
Kabura was arrested in May and has since been held in Bujumbura’s Ngozi prison, from where he was informed of the verdict and sentence that was delivered by the court in the absence of himself and his family.
RSF also complained that authorities have ignored calls to free Kabura on bail despite his poor health and said the verdict was a sign of the government’s increasing authoritarianism.
It shows Burundi’s ”determination to crack down hard on all those who stray from the party line, despite all the attempts at mediation and the appeals for reason,” the group said.
Burundi is emerging from a 13-year civil war that has claimed about 300 000 lives and last year elected Nkurunziza to head a power-sharing government that has since come under heavy criticism for graft and rights abuses. — Sapa-AFP