JED and RWB ask to stop threats against journalist Jean-Paul Bisila

Reporters Without Borders is extremely concerned about the threats that have been made by Jean Bamanisa, the governor of the Congolese northeastern Province Orientale, against Jean-Paul Bisila, a journalist with the Radio Okapi branch in the city of Bunia. Download the press release by Journalist en Danger (JED), in French, here. RWB supports JED’s appeal to regional, national and international authorities to do everything possible to end the threats against Bisila so that he can work freely and independently. The Governor of Province Orientale has made repeated and explicit threats against the journalist. On 18 November 2014, he said, in front of witnesses, including MONUSCO staff, that he intended to have the journalist arrested. Five days earlier he had personally intimidated the journalist over the phone. Radio Okapi’s journalists have already paid a high price for using their right to freedom of information in the DRC, ranked 151st out of 180 countries in the 2014 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index. Two of them, Serge Maheshe and Didace Namujimbo, were murdered in Bukavu (province of Sud-Kivu) in 2007 and 2008.