Abstract
For decades, successive dictators – from Mobutu Sese Seko to Joseph Kabila – have been using Makala prison to “re-educate” those who dare to speak out against abuse of power, corruption and nepotism, election rigging and the rising cost of living.
The victims include journalists, opposition politicians, musicians, academics, peaceful protesters and members of civil society organisations.
While some have died because of unsanitary conditions, others have survived to tell the tale of overcrowding, hunger, lack of medical care, sickness, and physical and emotional torture.
They also tell of at least 10 inmates who die every day and who are taken away at night to avoid the public’s attention.
A supporter of President Tshisekedi brandishing a medal that reads “the people first”.
CREDIT: Baz Ratner/ Reuters / Alamy
“I thought I wouldn’t come out alive from the Makala prison. I went through that kind of suffering merely for expressing my views at a public event,” said a political activist who spent a lengthy period there after taking part in an anti-government march.
“How do you begin to tell the world that cabinet ministers and state-owned enterprise managers who stole public funds still roam free, but someone who simply stated his views in the media, in a song or at a public meeting about abuse of power or corruption is incarcerated for months or years without trial?”
If Mobutu trivialised freedom of expression as a white man’s myth, the Kabila administration duly buried it, making it a sin that deserved the worst forms of punishment, including detention in undisclosed locations, lengthy jail sentences, torture and death.
The deadly National Intelligence Agency (ANR) had its hands full during the Kabila years, kidnapping and detaining thousands of political prisoners, some for simply stating that politicians were crooks or protesting against Kabila’s attempt to seek a third term in office.
The liberation in March 2019 of 700 political prisoners by new president Félix Tshisekedi brought hope and optimism that the country was finally turning one of the darkest pages of its 60 years of post-independence by restoring the power or right to express one’s opinions without censorship, restraint or legal penalty. But that was not to be. Critics believe that the new leader, who made a “promise to be the one who will promote freedom of the press and sanctify the press as a true fourth estate”, appears to be shamelessly following his mentor’s footsteps.
His first targets are outspoken journalists and musicians who criticise him, his policies and the ruling party.
On World Press Freedom Day, 3 May, Journalistes en Danger (JED), a local media watchdog, revealed it had already registered 228 cases of press freedom violations under the Tshisekedi administration. These included 47 cases since the beginning of 2021.
Out of these, there were 14 direct or indirect threats, 11 arrests, nine cases of assault or torture and five cases of censorship or obstruction of free movement of information.
Tshivis Tshivuadi, the JED secretary-general, told Index that the current situation was due to the culture of impunity and mediaphobia that has taken hold in the country for years, and which he said would not change without real political will on the part of the new administration.
Banny Mayifuila Kalabanza, a Kinshasa-based journalist, echoed Tshivuadi’s sentiments. “Violence against journalists occurs by particular people who abuse their political positions to attack the media but who are never worried about being prosecuted,” he said.
Kalabanza said journalists were often victims of one-sided justice. “Any holder of political, economic or military power can give himself ‘justice’ whenever the discourse of the press does not suit him or her, for example when journalists condemn the rise [in the] cost of living, mismanagement and embezzlement of public money.”
Angela Quintal, African programme co-ordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, hailed the courage of journalists in the DRC. She said: “Unfortunately, they have for years worked under threat of arrest and physical violence. Just in the past few months, the CPJ has documented the detention of journalist Pius Romain Rolland Ngoie and security forces threatening radio stations over their reporting on military abuse.”
Rolland Ngoie was arrested on 22 December 2020 and transferred two days later to Makala prison, where he spent nearly two months for criminal defamation after an MP’s complaint.
“Journalism is not a crime but criminal defamation laws remain a major threat to press freedom in the DRC. This colonial-era legislation is, at its core, incompatible with African and global press freedom norms,” Quintal said.
A legal expert who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being arrested and tortured by the ANR said the major problem was the corrupt criminal justice system. “There are instances when magistrates, judges and prosecutors get a call from top politicians or businessmen allied to the regime to ensure that a journalist or an academic is arrested and jailed, and the key is thrown away.”
Intelligence agents from the ANR were involved in at least 16 of 109 cases of arbitrary arrest and harassment over the past year, according to Human Rights Watch research.
Executive secretary of the Observatoire de la Liberté de la Presse en Afrique (OLPA) Chancelle Nsingi Bamenga told Index on Censorship: “The situation of media freedom in the DRC raised concerns because every week we register more attacks on journalists. At OLPA, we firmly believe that it is the culture of impunity that is perpetuating this situation.”
On the other hand, she said the slowness of the criminal justice system was encouraging impunity. According to Nsingi Bamenga, the way out of this intolerance is for the journalists to operate responsibly, and the government to respect its legal obligations by providing direct and indirect assistance to the media.
She also urged the two chambers of parliament to enact a law on the right of access to information. As freedom of expression continues to deteriorate in this vast, mineral-rich central African nation, self-censorship seems to be gaining momentum.
A musician told Index that he made a painful decision not to go ahead with the recording of the songs he wrote to expose the president’s lies about putting the people first.
“Freedom of expression is entrenched in the constitution but, in practice, it has been given to the dogs. I don’t want to get arrested just for singing a song that tells it as it is, and sent right away to Makala. It’s not a good place,” he said.
Quintal said the CPJ would keep encouraging local and international journalists and press freedom advocates to shine a light on abuses. But in the meantime, the situation does not look as though it will improve any time soon.