Government coup against news media

As protests continue, social media and instant messaging blocked. Online social networks and instant messaging services such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Viber and Tango were blocked again today, the fifth day of protests against President Nkurunziza’s candidacy for a third term. The authorities began blocking these services two days ago to make it harder to organize demonstrations, which are now banned. But instant messaging services are also a widely used method for journalists to communicate with their editors or to send reports abroad. As telephone connections with Burundi are badly disrupted, it has been almost impossible to reach anyone since the demonstrations began last weekend. The news coverage available in the provinces is completely one-sided. The RPA remains closed and privately-owned radio stations Isanganiro and Bonesha FM are still unable to broadcast in the provinces. The Bujumbura satellite dish that relays Radio France Internationale outside of Bujumbura has been down for the past two weeks. Only Radio Rehma, a government mouthpiece, and state-owned Radio Nationale Burundaise are broadcasting in the provinces without any interference. In the capital, journalists are finding it hard to work and are exposed to violence and intimidation by the police and members of the Imbonerakure, a youth movement that supports the president. Reporters Without Borders has been told of several incidents. In one case, police forced their way into RPA journalist Hermes Ntibandetse’s home in Nyakabiga yesterday but fortunately neither he nor his family were there at the time. Parfait Mudasigana, a journalist with the Burundi Eco weekly magazine, was hit by policemen yesterday and was forced to delete photos of a riot police truck that had fallen into a canal. A group of Imbonerakure youths armed with rifle and machetes stopped three Bonesha FM reporters in Kanyosha, a municipality south of the capital, on 28 April, accusing them of posing as journalists in order to distribute weapons. An intelligence officer accompanying the Imbonerakure finally managed to calm the youths down and persuade them to let the journalists go. ________________________________________________________________ Journalists are being harassed and radio stations prevented from broadcasting as the authorities clamp down on the media in an attempt to contain protests in the wake of Saturday’s announcement that President Pierre Nkurunziza is to run for a third term. Some news outlets, like Iwacu, have chosen to publish continuous information threads online. The protests continued today after at least two people were killed in the clashes that erupted yesterday in the capital, Bujumbura. According to the latest information available, Radio Publique Africaine (RPA), Burundi’s most popular privately-owned radio station, was closed today. “Let them close the radio station as long as they don’t kill anyone and don’t steal our equipment,” the station’s director, Bob Rugurika, said. Yesterday morning, RPA was forced to suspend live coverage of the protests when three government ministers and police officers arrived with search and arrest warrants. They accused RPA of inciting an uprising by providing live coverage of the protests and threatened to close the station. Interior minister Edouard Nduwimana said he and his colleagues had not come to close the station, just to dialogue, Radio France Internationale reported. This morning the police raided the Maison de la Presse (Press Club) in Bujumbura and forced the Media Synergy Studio to stop broadcasting. The Media Synergy Studio is an alliance under which five radio stations – RPA, Bonesha FM, Isanganiro, CCIB FM+ and Radio Télevision Renaissance – are cooperating in their coverage of elections and other subjects. “Five radio stations were in the process of broadcasting in synergy from the Burundian Association of Radio Broadcasters when the police arrived, roughed up journalists and closed down the studio and the Press Club,” Bonesha FM director Patrick Nduwimana told Reporters Without Borders. During the raid, the police tried to arrest the president of the Burundian Association of Journalists (UBJ), Alexandre Niyungeko. They also roughed up and briefly detained Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, the well-known president of the Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detainees (APRODH), who had arrived for an interview. “We condemn the Burundian government’s arbitrary and violent behaviour towards journalists and media outlets,” said Cléa Kahn-Sriber, the head of the Reporters Without Borders Africa desk. “The president and his party are openly displaying a desire to silence the media by all means possible. By gagging radio stations, President Nkurunziza is confirming the suspicions of his detractors, who accuse him of despotic tendencies and of planning to block a democratic outcome to the upcoming legislative and presidential elections.” So far the United States is the only country to have voiced concern about what has happened to RPA and other independent radio stations. Kahn-Sriber added: “We urge the international community to react quickly and firmly to these draconian attacks on media freedom. With elections due in many other African countries, turning a blind eye to President Nkurunziza’s behaviour would give a green light to all the other governments that might be tempted to suppress the free expression of their peoples.” Yesterday, the authorities disconnected the relay transmitters of Burundi’s three leading independent radio stations – RPA, Bonesha FM and Isanganiro – thereby prevented their broadcasts from reaching the rest of the country. Their phone lines were also disconnected. According to the Media Synergy alliance, the ruling CNDD-FDD party circulated a propaganda paper in February that called for the destruction of the “teachings of the government’s enemies” and included opposition parties, civil society actors and journalists with Bonesha FM, RPA, Isanganiro and Radio Télévision Renaissance among the “government’s enemies.” Burundi is ranked 145th out of 180 countries in the 2015 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.