DRC - Officials manhandle US photographer as she covers Goma street demonstration

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns US award-winning photojournalist Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi’s manhandling by members of the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) while she filmed a peaceful street demonstration in Goma, the capital of the eastern province of Nord-Kivu, on 15 March.

Four ANR officers used force against Alhindawi as they tried to arrest her but she managed to escape by clinging to a vehicle belonging to the UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO.

Alhindawi, who works for the magazine Causette and freelances for other media such as CNN, Al Jazeera, National Geographic and The New York Times, was the only journalist covering the march, staged by a group called LUCHA (Struggle for Change).

“The fact that Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi, a foreign reporter, was one of the only journalist who dared to cover the LUCHA march is symptomatic of the unease and self-censorship that prevails today in Nord-Kivu province,” said Cléa Kahn-Sriber, the head of RSF’s Africa desk. “We urge the province’s authorities to allow journalists to do their work and to freely report what is going on within Congolese civil society.”

A civil society movement that defines itself as non-violent, non-partisan and peaceful, LUCHA is calling for democratic renewal in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The 47 participants in the demonstration marched with their hands tied and their mouths gagged in protest against the systematic gagging of the movement. Nineteen of them were arrested for “disturbing public order” and are still detained.

The march was held to mark the anniversary of the arrest of two LUCHA members, Fred Bauma and Yves Makuambala, during a meeting that LUCHA organized in Goma in March 2015 with representatives of similar movements in Burkina Faso (“Balais citoyen”) and Senegal (“Y’en a marre”).

The authorities portrayed the meeting as “terrorist” in nature, a description that was rejected by a parliamentary committee. Bauma and Makuambala nonetheless continue to be held in Kinshasa on a charge of conspiring against President Joseph Kabila.

During a visit last month, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon voiced concern about the restriction of political space in the DRC. The clampdown and other developments are seen as signs that Kabila, who was been president for the past 15 years, may be tempted to indefinitely postpone the presidential election due to be held at the end of this year.

The DRC is ranked 150th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2015 World Press Freedom Index.