RFI and AFP file torture complaint in Burundi

Reporters Without Borders supports the initiative taken by Radio France Internationale and Agence France-Presse in an attempt to obtain justice for their Burundi correspondent, Esdras Ndikumana, who was beaten and tortured after being arrested in Bujumbura on 2 August. The lack of any progress in the investigation into this attack is typical of the current climate of impunity for crimes of violence against journalists and media outlets in Burundi. In a statement yesterday evening, RFI and AFP said they have filed a complaint against persons unknown before Burundi’s supreme court of justice in connection with the attack. RFI and AFP deplore the lack of progress in the investigation, although it was the president’s office that called for an investigation on 13 August, and they explain that they filed their complaint after getting no reply to the letter they wrote to the president on 22 September describing the attack and its perpetrators. Ndikumana has filed a separate complaint as the victim. “It is extremely worrying that this investigation has yet to produce any tangible result especially as the attack on Ndikumana took place in broad daylight at the headquarters of the National Intelligence Service,” said Clea Kahn-Sriber, the head of the Reporters Without Borders Africa desk. “It should not be very complicated to establish who was responsible. We urge the Burundian justice system not to tolerate political pressure and to do everything possible to identify those responsible and bring them to trial.” Since the start of the current political crisis in Burundi in April, none of the physical attacks against journalists has been the subject of judicial proceedings. Instead, the failure to punish this violence encourages the police and security forces to continue threatening and attacking journalists. Jean-Claude Ciza, a journalist who was savagely beaten by a police officer on a Bujumbura street on 4 September, continued to receive verbal death threats from the security forces after the attack and had to flee the city. Foot-dragging in another judicial investigation is meanwhile preventing the reopening of the radio stations that have been closed since the attempted coup in May. Two investigations were opened after the coup attempt, one to identify those responsible for attacks on several radio stations, the other to identify the journalists who broadcast the rebellious military's messages. According to the information available, the first investigation was closed with no public statement about anyone being arrested or identified. The second is meanwhile taking time to produce any hard evidence against journalists and therefore seems above all to be serving as a pretext for not reopening media outlets critical of the government. “It is the media’s role and duty to cover the news,” Kahn-Sriber added. “If the government thinks some journalists went too far, it is not a reason for forcing all the media to close. We all on the prosecutor-general to speed up the investigation so that the media can quickly reopen, as this is a condition for a return to normality in Burundi.” Burundi is ranked 145th out of 180 countries in the 2015 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.