Family Of A Prominent Congo Journalist Says He Was Abducted

Source: AUN News

News by AUN News correspondent
Saturday, October 29, 2022
AUN News – ISSN: 2949-8090

Summary:

Steve Wembi, a giant of a man with a wide, toothy smile, is one of the most well-known journalists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
State security detained three people that evening who went to the Léon to look for him: his mother, his wife, and a Radio France Internationale journalist.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been ruled by President Etienne Tshisekedi since 1994.
His father, Etienne, was a pro-democracy opposition figure who was repeatedly detained under Mobutu Sese Seko’s dictatorship.
His driver and three people who went to look for him at the Léon prison say he was taken by the government.
Wembi’s brother says the denials of his abduction are a ruse to hide the truth.
We don’t want to find my big brother’s body tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, he explained when I asked him what he meant by that.
How come they scheduled a meeting and picked him up at night?
The worst, we fear, has occurred, he said.

I received a call from a Kinshasa-based colleague late on Monday night. He was agitated at the time and informed me, “They took Steve Wembi.” He was taken into a white jeep without license plates after being stopped at the Hotel Leon as the family of the prominent Congo journalist remained in a state of shock. State security detained three people that evening who went to the Léon to look for him: his mother, his wife, and a Radio France Internationale journalist.

Background

Wembi, a giant of a man with a wide, toothy smile, is one of the most well-known journalists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since at least 2017, he has assisted foreign journalists for years and written for The New York Times about the Ebola outbreak, the country’s eastern uprisings, and the murder of UN representatives. Le Vieux Biométrique, or “Old Biometric,” is his nick name. According to an unofficial count by the press freedom advocacy NGO Reporters Sans Frontières, if his detention were to be confirmed, it would mark the 20th arbitrary detention of a journalist this year.

International Liason

Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo became the president of the DRC in 2019. Despite significant irregularities in the election process, the Trump administration in the US chose to endorse the outcome. The argument went that doing anything else would put the nation at risk of slipping back into a bloody civil war. Since it was the first peaceful leadership transition in Congo’s postcolonial history, US officials hoped to collaborate with Tshisekedi on reversing Chinese influence in the nation, fighting corruption, and bolstering democracy. Many of the minerals used to make the batteries that are crucial to the Green Revolution come from the Congo.

The subsequent years, however, have been characterized by continued Chinese investment in the nation (including the sale of a stake in the largest lithium mine in the world to China’s Zijn Mining), fairly blatant corruption, and threats to postpone the 2023 election. Additionally, the president has grown more autocratic, stifling opposition and the nation’s thriving, if chaotic, press. My coworker and I were the 15th and 16th journalists to be detained in the Democratic Republic of the Congo this year, so I should know. I was detained by state security while working on a story for the AUN News, taken under eerily similar circumstances to Wembi, held for five and a half days, and then forced to resign from the Africa division of the AUN News.

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One of the fortunate ones was me. Patrick Lola and Christian Bofaya, two journalists from the northern Equateur province, have been detained since January for covering a protest; this summer, a prosecutor asked a court to sentence Chilassy Bofumbo to three years in prison on unproven charges; and three journalists were tortured in Congolese security detention this year (he was acquitted and released after seven months in July). Tshisekedi has increased his crackdown following retaliatory hostilities by the rebel M23 militia in the country’s east, which the UN claims receive equipment and support from neighboring Rwand.

On October 25, the UN human rights office in the nation tweeted that “more and more journalists covering the news in DRC have been targeted with arrest by the intelligence services since the beginning of the year.” This is made bitterly ironic by the fact that Tshisekedi’s father, Etienne, was a pro-democracy opposition figure who was repeatedly detained under Mobutu Sese Seko’s dictatorship.

The Congolese government has maintained that Steve Wembi is not in their custody ever since he vanished. When the US Embassy enquired about my whereabouts, they initially denied that they had taken me. Patrick Muyaya, the minister of communications, stated that Wembi was wanted by the law but that he had “gone into hiding,” and speculation has been rife that he had been abducted or had fled to avoid capture.

The present problem as the Family Of the Prominent Congo Journalist is helpless

The testimony of Wembi’s driver, who claimed to have been shocked with a stun baton as Wembi was arrested, along with the experiences of the three people who went to look for him at the Léon (who were later released by state security after being detained for about four hours at a government detention facility known as 3 Zulu) suggest that Wembi has actually been taken by the government. According to the RFI journalist, a sizable sum of money was stolen from him. The denials were a ruse to hide the truth, according to Wembi’s brother Miscaden Wembi Lomango, who I spoke with on Friday. He explained, “They don’t want people to know what happened to Steve. “Under this regime, there is hardly any press freedom.”

The director of RSF’s sub-Saharan Africa bureau, Sadibou Marong, said in a statement that the Congolese authorities “must not only shed light on Steve Wembi’s abduction and explain precisely what has happened to him, but they must also do whatever is necessary to have him released immediately.”

Journalists in Kinshasa are all concerned, according to Benoit Nyemba, a former Reuters employee. Threats to journalists are constant. At least under the previous administration, if you were taken in, someone would know where you were. It is important to note that the Rome Statute, which governs the International Criminal Court and to which the DRC is a signatory, classifies enforced disappearances as crimes against humanity.

Different Explanations by the Family of the Prominent Congo journalist, Steve Wembi

There are many possible explanations for why Wembi might have been taken. He was present at a press conference just prior to his disappearance where Muyaya, the communications minister, voiced his displeasure over a foreign journalist who had published audio recordings of soldiers engaging in combat with the M23 militia. Wembi, who supports Joseph Kabila, the nation’s former president, has made extensive comments about the conflict on his social media accounts.

Wembi’s family is currently in a state of suspended animation. In the eastern city of Bukavu, his brother, a lawyer, told me that they were terrified that he would be killed and were at a loss for what to do. “They might detain a person at home. How come they scheduled a meeting and picked him up at night? The worst, we fear, has occurred,” he said. We don’t want to find my big brother’s body tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, he explained when I asked him what he meant by that.

Family Of A Prominent Congo Journalist Says He Was Abducted

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