ProtectDefenders.eu has been informed about the enforced disappearance of human rights defenders Mr. Jacques Sinzahera and Gloire Saasita, which has been ongoing for three months.
Jacques Sinzahera, a member of the Citizen Movement “Amka Congo” (“Anchor Congo”) and Gloire Saasita, a member of the citizen movement “Positive Generation”, were arbitrarily arrested in Goma on 1 August 2024 because of their denunciation of taxes levied in the context of a state of siege and the consequences of armed conflicts on the civilian population at a press point.
90 days after their arrest, Jacques Sinzahera and Gloire Saasita have still not been brought before a judicial authority, and have had neither access to a lawyer nor the right to a family visit to the detriment of the national and international commitments of the DRC.
There have already been warnings on the Congolese government’s use of siege to restrict freedom of expression and opinion in an abusive manner. Jacques Sinzahera and Gloire Saasita seem to be the target of a global policy of repression that the state is leading against the critical voices of the state of siege.
We have also received an alert on the arrest and subsequent killing of radio journalist Yoshua Kambere Machozi on 6 November 2024 by members of the rebel group M23 in the North Kivu province — a region affected by a bloody armed conflict. The defender was a member of the Mpety community radio station, whose headquarters were looted on 29 October 2024. The terrible murder of this community radio journalist confirms — yet again — the alarming danger facing journalists working in the east of the DRC. Yoshua Kambere Machozi is the second journalist to be killed in North Kivu province in the past two months. Edmond Bahati Monja, coordinator of the Catholic radio station Maria, was shot dead at close range in Goma on the evening of 27 September.
Mpety community radio station is just one of many radio stations in the province looted by the M23. Local media outlets in the eastern DRC, precious sources of regional news, are particularly vulnerable. We had already received information on July on the upheaval to the local media landscape caused by the M23’s advancements in the southern Lubero Territory in North Kivu. With 50 local journalists fleeing the territory and at least 6 media outlets looted, the RSF described the advancement of the M23 group in the region as creating an information desert in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
