Serge Maheshe

Didace Namujimbo, a journalist for Radio Okapi, was shot dead on the night of November 21, 2008. Now, after repeated delays, a military court in Bukavu, capital of the province of South Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, is putting on trial a dozen people charged in connection with the murder.

Top Developments
• RFI removed from FM frequencies; other stations censored.
• Hundreds march in nine provinces to protest ongoing threats, violence.

I shall never forgive myself for having initiated and encouraged my younger brother, Didace Namujimbo, to take up journalism. Working for 21 years in Bukavu, a city nestled on the picturesque shores of Lake Kivu, led me to cover every aspect of the brutal conflict and humanitarian catastrophe in this part of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, but a year ago nothing prepared me to deal with the news that my brother had been killed.

Two years after transitioning to democracy in historic U.N.-backed elections, the Democratic Republic of the Congo was one of the most perilous countries in Africa for journalists. For the fourth consecutive year, a journalist was murdered in unclear circumstances, this time in the unstable, strife-torn east of the country.

New York, May 22, 2008--Three men accused of killing Congolese journalist Serge Maheshe in 2007 were convicted and sentenced to death, while two others were acquitted in a retrial that ended Wednesday. The trial failed to establish a clear motive for the crime, according to news reports and local journalists.

New York, August 10, 2007— A respected freelance photojournalist in eastern DRC was gunned down on Thursday evening as he returned home from covering a local conference on environmental protection, local journalists told CPJ.

CPJ is investigating whether Patrick Kikuku Wilungula—the second journalist killed in Congo’s volatile east this year after Serge Maheshe—was murdered for his work

June 27, 2007

His Excellency Joseph Kabila
President of the Democratic Republic of Congo
c/o Embassy of the DRC to the United States
1800 New Hampshire Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20009

Via Facsimile: (202) 234-2609

Mr. President,

We are writing to express our alarm at a disturbing nationwide pattern of attacks on the news media. Since the arrival of your government on February 24, eight broadcasters were raided by government security forces in connection with their news coverage, and one journalist was killed amid increasingly insecure conditions, according to CPJ research. These events undermine Information Minister Toussaint Tshilombo's statement on World Press Freedom Day that press freedom is respected in the DRC.

New York, June 14, 2007— Police arrested two suspects today in the killing of a broadcaster for United Nations-sponsored Radio Okapi in the eastern border town of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the station’s journalists told CPJ.

CPJ is investigating to determine whether Serge Maheshe was killed because of his work as a journalist.

Kinshasa, June 3, 2004—Rebel forces that took control of the town of Bukavu, in eastern DRC, on Wednesday have threatened and attacked the town's three main community radio stations, forcing them off the air, according to the local press freedom group Journaliste en Danger (JED) and other local sources.

Joseph Nkinzo, director of the radio station Sauti ya Rehema (Voice of Mercy), narrowly escaped an assassination attempt this morning, when rebels came looking for him and murdered his younger brother. The rebels arrived at the journalist's home, smashed windows, and demanded to know where Nkinzo was. Believing that Nkinzo's brother was the journalist, the rebels killed him and looted the house.