Journalist Stanis Bujakera will soon be free. He was sentenced to six months in prison, a sentence which covers the duration of his pre-trial detention. He also received a fine. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) welcomes the soon-to-be-found freedom of Stanis, detained since September 8, 2023, but recalls that he should never have been arrested, prosecuted and convicted given a case that is clearly fabricated against him.
Finally ! It took 192 days, seven requests for provisional release and international mobilization for Stanis Bujakera – The Best Of Stanis Bujakera be notified of an upcoming release.
The Congolese journalist arrested and detained since September 8, 2023 was sentenced to six months in prison on March 18, 2024 after more than six months behind bars, and fined one million Congolese francs. He was accused, among other things, of having “manufactured and distributed” and “faux document” intelligence services incriminating another security service in the assassination of a political opponent.
At the end of an investigation carried out in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in October 2023, RSF demonstrated the total vacuity of the accusations made against this journalist, the latter being neither the author, nor even the first to have obtained the grade for which he was prosecuted. Several security sources also confirmed to RSF that this document did indeed come from the Congolese intelligence services, as previously stated. Young Africathe media for which Stanis Bujakera is the correspondent in the DRC.
“This decision comes after a cabal which cost more than six months of freedom to this journalist who had absolutely nothing to reproach himself for. Stanis Bujakera should never have been arrested. As the investigation we carried out demonstrated, the procedure against the journalist was based on spurious accusations. We are extremely relieved for Stanis, his family, his friends and his colleagues, and we thank all his supporters for the mobilization. We nevertheless denounce this conviction. Stanis should never have been arrested, prosecuted and then convicted given a case that was clearly fabricated against him,” declared Anne Bocandé, editorial director of RSF.
Over the past five months, the trial has exposed the prosecution’s lies and crude attempts to fabricate evidence to justify its action against the journalist. The public prosecutor’s office relied in particular on bogus expertise according to which the metadata of the incriminated document had made it possible to identify the journalist as its first distributor. A technically impossible conclusion to draw from the admission of the representatives of the networks on which it was broadcast and according to a new expertise carried out subsequently. The public prosecutor’s office, which also accused the journalist of having forged an intelligence services seal on the document, also appeared in great difficulty when the stamp he claimed “authentic” and that he had produced during the trial appeared different from that provided by the Congolese national intelligence agency…
Faced with this unfair procedure, Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi even ended up recognizing during a press conference on February 22 that the journalist was “victim” of the “tergiversations” of a “sick justice”.
The detention of Stanis Bujakera, deputy director of the Congolese news site News.cdcorrespondent for the pan-African magazine Young Africa and the British press agency Reuters, was the subject of a major RSF campaign. The organization carried out a series of investigations in the DRC, coordinated a mobilization with local and international support for the journalist, carried out a mission on the ground to meet the authorities and contacted the United Nations and the Media Freedom Coalition.
RSF considers that President Tshisekedi’s projects in terms of press freedom are numerous, as he begins a second term at the head of the country. As early as October, two months before the presidential election, the organization presented ten commitments to support press freedom and promote the safety of journalists. RSF reiterates its call for all charges against journalists arbitrarily detained in the country to be dropped. It will also have to take measures for the sustainability of the national mechanism dedicated to the safety of journalists, reform the legal framework for the exercise of journalism and fight against the impunity of the perpetrators of assassinations of journalists.
The DRC occupies 124th place in the World Press Freedom Index published by RSF in 2023.
Reporters Without Borders
2024-03-18 18:28:40