Bujumbura : the head office of the Iwacu press group targeted by stone throwing

Unidentified people threw stones into the plot hosting the office of the Iwacu press group located in the commercial city Bujumbura on Monday night. Those responsible for this independent medium describe this act as intimidation and call on the CNC to intervene.

INFO SOS Médias Burundi

On Tuesday, an SOS Médias Burundi reporter went to Iwacu, various employees were at work.

Vehicles without fuel are undoubtedly parked in the plot. Two men, apparently in their fifties, are sitting at the entrance. They are drivers.

At the entrance to the editorial department, nearly ten stones are visible. They were thrown away Monday night.

Other stones are not easily noticed because there are other stones in the parking lot. The six vehicles parked there were spared.

On the south side of the Iwacu fence is a police post. It is the agents assigned to this post who intervened.

In the following plot, almost to the southeast, a very beautiful villa, almost new, with two gates, is erected.

Colleagues from the Iwacu press group pay tribute to Jean Bigirimana, missing since July 22, 2016

The stones flew over the building housing the Iwacu printing works which is a few meters in front but offset to the left of the editorial department.

“It was around 7:30 p.m. I was still in the office correcting some news reports. Security guards informed me of the presence of a strange person who later disappeared,” says Abbas Mbazumutima, deputy director of publications at Iwacu. The stone throwing began when security guards went to check what was really happening, as he continues to say. They thought maybe they were thieves, which was not the case.

Abbas Mbazumutima asks the National Communication Council (CNC) to call people for calm and serenity. For him “freedom of expression is one of the great pillars of democracy. Wanting to cut this pillar is in some way an attack on democracy.”

To colleagues in general and Iwacu employees in particular, one of the few senior journalists still in Burundi who publishes angry editorials, advises them to practice their profession professionally and “not to give in to any form of intimidation”.

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The head office of the Iwacu press group targeted by stone throwing, photo credit : Iwacu