{"id":15256,"date":"2020-02-23T08:51:58","date_gmt":"2020-02-23T08:51:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/?p=15256"},"modified":"2020-02-23T08:51:58","modified_gmt":"2020-02-23T08:51:58","slug":"unhrc-pleads-for-release-of-four-iwacu-reporters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/unhrc-pleads-for-release-of-four-iwacu-reporters\/","title":{"rendered":"UNHRC pleads for release of four Iwacu reporters"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to a communiqu\u00e9 issued by the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on February 20, the UN experts strongly criticized the two and a half year jail sentence handed down against four Burundian journalists.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Four Iwacu reporters detained in Bubanza prison for about four months<\/p><\/div>\n

They said sentencing the four journalists to jail for simply carrying out their jobs is not acceptable. \u201cJournalists must be able to conduct their work independently and must have unhindered access to sources of information,\u201d read the communiqu\u00e9.<\/p>\n

They also said they are deeply concerned that the prison sentence of the four Iwacu reporters was handed down following proceedings that don\u2019t appear to have respected the right to a fair trial. \u201cThe convictions appear to be directly related to their activities as journalists. If the right to a fair trial has not been respected, the journalists should be released,\u201d the experts said.<\/p>\n

Agn\u00e8s Ndirubusa, Christine Kamikazi, Egide Harerimana and T\u00e9rence Mpozenzi were arrested on their way to Musigati commune in Bubanza province when they were going to cover the clashes between the national forces and an armed group in the area on October 22.<\/p>\n

On 30 January 2020, the Bubanza High Court sentenced them to two and a half years in prison and fined them each one million Burundian francs for “an \u2018impossible attempt\u2019 to undermine the internal security of the state. Iwacu Press Group lawyer appealed to another jurisdiction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to a communiqu\u00e9 issued by the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on February 20, the UN experts strongly criticized the two and a half year jail sentence handed down against four Burundian journalists. They said sentencing the four journalists to jail for simply carrying out their jobs is not acceptable. \u201cJournalists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,670],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15257,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15256\/revisions\/15257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}