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press releases & Protests
October 23, 2007
Fax letter to: (202) 234-2609
HE President Joseph Kabila
President
The Democratic Republic of Congo
c/o HE Faith Mitifu
The Ambassador
Embassy of the Democratic Republic of Congo
1726 M St., NW, #601
Washington, DC 20036
Dear President,
Our attention has been drawn to a report that the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has banned 22 private television channels and 16 radio stations on grounds that they had “failed to conform to laws regulating the media industry.”
These laws, according to your Information Minister Toussaint Tshilombo Send, relate to the failure to pay taxes or for not having valid licenses.
While we agree that these are serious breaches of the law, we are deeply concerned that the drastic action that has been taken is in effect censorship of a large number of news and information outlets in the Republic. The action deprives a large number of people to access to information.
We believe that closure of the radio and TV stations for the non-payment of taxes is far too harsh a penalty and deprives far too many people of information. From the scanty information we have had access to we do not know whether alternative measures were taken. We refer to summonsing the culprits to appear before court and, if found guilty, offering them alternative methods by which the taxes could be paid, rather than closure of the stations which, apart from the censoring process it involves and removal of information sources from a large segment of the public, prevents the stations from continuing to operate and earn income to enable them to pay the taxes.
In regard to stations operating without a license, we agree that this is a serious offence but we question whether, again, there were not alternative methods of achieving legality rather than closure of the stations concerned. We wonder whether it was not possible to arrange meeting between the licensing authority and the stations concerned to find out whether there were ways in which they could legitimate their operations by obtaining licenses.
We, of course, have no knowledge why the stations did not obtain licenses but the fact that they operated without them suggests that there may have been unreasonable obstructions placed in the way of their obtaining licenses. We are unable to establish whether there was any inquiry to establish whether there were circumstances other than irresponsible illegality that led to these unlicensed situations arising.
Our concerns, as expressed above, are that a major interference with the free flow of information that the actions of the authorities has brought about by the closures is highly undesirable in a country professing to be a democracy and which strives to diversify media outlets. It also conflicts with the principles underlying the African Union’s views on the free flow of information and media freedom as expressed in the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights.
We urge Your Excellency to consider alternative means to enable these stations to resume their broadcasts while at the same time legitimizing their operations.
Yours sincerely,
E. Markham Bench
Executive Director
cc: HE Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga
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