Journalist en Danger (JED) strongly condemns the assault perpetrated by security forces on the correspondent of the Radio France Internationale in Kinshasa, capital of DR Congo. JED demands an explanation from the Provincial Commissioner of the Congolese National Police in Kinshasa on this intolerable act.
Patient Ligodi, journalist-correspondent of Radio France Internationale in Kinshasa and director of the online media, actualité.cd, was brutalized and violently assaulted, on September 15, 2021, by elements of the police. The journalist’s clothes were torn by the security forces as a result of the brutalities, and he was embarked by force in a police vehicle.
Ligodi was covering a banned demonstration of the opposition that was banned by the governor of Kinshasa. The demonstration was organized in Kinshasa and in the provinces by leaders of an opposition platform LAMUKA to oppose a probable power shift of Felix Tshisekedi and the politicization of the CENI (Independent National Electoral Commission).
Journalist in Danger (JED) strongly denounces the police brutalities and urges the government and police authorities to sanction the perpetrators of this act of violence against the journalist.
For JED, nothing justifies the use of violence against this RFI correspondent who did not commit any offense in covering this demonstration and the actions of the security forces had nothing to do with the journalist’s work.
