International News

KINSHASA, July 25, (APP/AFP) – Two Agence France-Presse (AFP)
journalists were briefly detained and maltreated in the Democratic Republic of Congo capital Kinshasa on Tuesday by three men who presented themselves as military intelligence officers.
After arriving to conduct an interview with the head of Kinshasa’s
main hospital — as part of coverage of a doctors’ strike — the two journalists were seized by three people who identified themselves as agents of the Military Detection of Anti-National Activities service (DEMIAP).
“Three people in civilian clothes presented themselves as military
intelligence officers and took away our (video) equipment roughly led us to
their boss, a major who told us were were “under arrest”, the two journalists said.
They were taken inside the hospital where the major accused them of
shooting images aimed at “smearing the country” abroad.
He took 15,000 Congolese francs (around $10) and the journalists were
pushed around and roughed up before being freed after around 30 minutes
following the intervention of the hospital’s head medic.
Their equipment was also returned.
Congolese Media Minister Lambert Mende, promised to look into the
incident.
Aggression against journalists, particulary the foreign media, is a
regular event in DR Congo, a country which ranked 154th out of 180 on the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.