June 24, 2007 at 08:10:40

DR Congo: UN colleagues mourn slain journalist Serge Maheshe

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By UNNews/MONUC, Posted by Georgianne Nienaber (about the submitter) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

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Adding his voice to those of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC (MONUC) in speaking out against the murder of Mr. Maheshe, who worked at the country’s most popular radio station, Radio Okapi, UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said that “a famous voice in the DRC has been silenced.”

Calling on Congolese authorities to do everything possible to find and punish those responsible for the murder of the 31-year-old, Mr. Matsuura said, “it is essential that media professionals, the true pillars of democracy, are protected and that crimes against them do not go unpunished.”

Radio Okapi is a partnership between MONUC and the Hirondelle Foundation, a Swiss non-governmental organization (NGO).

According to UNESCO – tasked with defending press freedom worldwide – Mr. Maheshe is the third Congolese journalist to be murdered since November 2005. Bapuwa Mwamba, from daily newspaper Le Phare, was killed at his home by three armed men in July 2006. Franck Kangundu, a journalist for La Référence Plus, was killed with his wife in November 2005.

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