Congo on Thursday banned Al Jazeera satellite news network over its interview with the leader of a violent rebel group that has seized territory in the country's east in recent days. Separately, Congo's justice minister threatened journalists and others who report on the M23 rebels with the death penalty, though there is no law officially banning media from covering rebel groups.
There was no immediate comment from Al Jazeera. According to Congolese government spokesperson Patrick Muyaya, authorities revoked press credentials of Qatar’s broadcaster, saying it had interviewed the head of a “terror organization without proper accreditation.”.
Al Jazeera on Wednesday aired an interview with Bertrand Bisimwa, the head of the M23 rebel movement in the eastern Congo. In the interview, Bisimwa blamed the government in the capital, Kinshasa, for violating an August ceasefire and claimed that M23 is waging an “existential war.”.
M23 is the most prominent of more than 100 armed groups active in the mineral-rich area near the Congolese border with Rwanda, where more than 1 million people were displaced by fighting last year. A decade ago, the group seized the border city of Goma, and in late 2021 captured broad swaths of territory in eastern Congo.
Al Jazeera's interview with Bisimwa was ”tantamount to an apology for terrorism and totally unacceptable,” Muyaya told a news conference, urging journalists not to “give the floor to terrorists.”. Hours earlier, Congo's Justice Minister Constant Mutamba said on the social media platform X that anyone who reports on "the activities of the Rwandan army and its M23 auxiliaries, will now suffer the full force of the law (DEATH PENALTY).".
