Congo blocks internet ahead of protest march in Kinshasa
Democratic Republic of Congo authorities blocked the internet in Kinshasa and set up roadblocks throughout the city before planned protests on Sunday demanding that President Joseph Kabila give up power.
Catholic church leaders had called for a mass peaceful demonstration against Kabila’s 17-year rule, three weeks after a similar protest on New Year’s Eve that ended in violence.
After the authorities banned all demonstrations, the internet, e-mail and social media messaging networks were cut in the capital at about midnight on Saturday, according to AFP correspondents.
Security forces installed roadblocks on major routes into Kinshasa, while armed officers were conducting ID checks.
The church has also called for rallies in several other cities including Lubumbashi and Goma, but the government has banned all demonstrations since September 2016, when antiKabila protests turned violent.
The head of the Muslim community in Congo backed the church and urged the authorities to allow the march to take place, despite no official permission having been granted. “I ask the authorities to avoid repressing the march,” said Cheikh Ali Mwinyi M’Kuu, Muslim community legal representative.
“If they decide to repress, there will be no peace. But if they let the march take place, they will respect the constitution and peace will prevail.”
The previous anti-Kabila march, on December 31, descended into a bloody crackdown after police and security forces fired on protesters.
Protest organisers said that 12 people had been killed, but the authorities said that no deaths that day were linked to the demonstration.
The country’s powerful Catholic Church, one of the few institutions to nationally enjoy broad credibility, condemned what it called “barbarism”.
The church was joined by a group of eight intellectuals in calling for Sunday’s march to be peaceful.
The UN and France have expressed their concern about the death toll.
The “secular committee of co-ordination” has called on people to march after mass “with our peace branches, our Bibles, our rosaries, our crucifixes, to save the Congo”. A magistrate said that arrest warrants had been issued against at least five members of the committee, prompting them to go into hiding.
Kandolo, a member of the group in Kinshasa, said: “We’re scared. I’m just like everyone else, I’m scared. I’m terrified for my children, who have been alone since December 28.” The committee has called for the release of political prisoners, to allow the return of exiled political opponents and, above all, a guarantee that Kabila will stand down.
Kabila, 46, has been in power since 2001, at the helm of a regime widely criticised for corruption, repression and incompetence. His constitutional term in office expired in December 2016, but he stayed on in a move that stoked a bloody spiral of violence.
Under an agreement brokered by the Catholic Church, he was allowed to stay in office provided new elections were held in 2017.
The authorities said later that organisational problems meant the vote would be held only on December 23. This angered western nations, but they accepted it reluctantly.