By Bate Felix, DAKAR Senegal
Democratic Republic of Congo
expelled a French journalist working for Reuters after her application for
journalistic accreditation was not approved.
Sonia Rolley applied in
September for accreditation to take up an assignment coordinating Reuters news
coverage in Congo. She was granted permission to cover a climate conference in
the capital, Kinshasa, in October while she waited for the application to be
processed.
On Tuesday, she received a
written summons to present herself to immigration police in Kinshasa, who she
said confiscated her passport and put her on a flight to Paris via Addis Ababa.
No reason for the decision was provided to Rolley, she said.
The police communications
department referred Reuters to the Interior Ministry. Reuters was unable to
reach the Interior Ministry spokesman late on Tuesday, and calls to officials
at the Ministry of Communications and Media went unanswered.
At 5:25 pm on Tuesday, a
government official sent a WhatsApp message to another journalist working for
Reuters saying, "Are you aware of the expulsion of Sonia by the services?
She is gone!"
The official, who asked not to
be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media, did not
specify the services he was referring to.
"We are offering Sonia
Rolley assistance and urgently seeking information from the Congolese
authorities," Reuters said in a statement.
"Reuters will continue to
report from Congo in an independent and impartial way, as we do around the
world."
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