KINSHASA (AFP) — Global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders on Tuesday denounced the detention of a journalist in the Democratic Republic of Congo being held without charge for 11 days.
Nsimba Embete Ponte, editor of a small bi-monthly publication L'Interprete, was forcibly seized on March 7 by armed men and "is being held incommunicado in a building used by the National Intelligence Agency in Kinshasa," it said.
"The security forces have no grounds for acting in this way. Whatever the reasons for Ponte's arrest, his family has a right to know them, and to be able to visit him," a statement by the Paris-based RSF (Reporters sans Frontieres) said.
"With regards to the prisoner, he has the right to defend himself, without which the Congolese intelligence services would be guilty of a serious legal violation and should be sanctioned by the law," it said.
RSF said Embete Ponte's wife and two brothers tracked down the building where he is being held. Police did not allow his family to see him and threatened to arrest them.
Prior to his arrest, Embete Ponte said he had been threatened over a series of articles in February on the state of President Joseph Kabila's health.
In February, rumours spread through Kinshasa on Kabila's state of health and planned attempts on his life. These rumours were laid to rest when the president appeared at a ministerial meeting at the start of March.
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