A media rights group on Friday criticised the jailing of a journalist in Democratic Republic of Congo following a libel case brought by a regional governor, suggesting it was driven by ”revenge”.
Rigobert Kakwala Kash, editor of the privately owned weekly Le Moniteur, became the first journalist to be imprisoned since last summer’s landmark multiparty elections when he received an 11-month sentence on Thursday on charges of libelling Jacques Mbadu Situ, Governor of the western province of Bas-Congo.
”A journalist can be punished twice for the same offence in Democratic Republic of Congo if the plaintiff is sufficiently powerful and bent on revenge,” Reporters sans Frontières said in a statement released in Kinshasa.
The group said the court should have waited before handing out the sentence for ”libelling, insulting and spreading false rumours” about the official, since an appeal for the defendant was still pending before a higher court.
Kakwala Kash was arrested early on Thursday morning at his Kinshasa home by five police special-services agents.
The day before his arrest, the High Authority for the Media suspended Le Moniteur‘s licence for six months in response to a separate complaint brought by the governor over the same case.
”This is not how we see press freedom,” RSF said.
Situ had objected to reports claiming he used 45-million Congolese francs ($100 000) to pay government employees in his province in defiance of Interior Ministry instructions. — Sapa-AFP