By RFIPosted on 18-01-2020Changed on 18-01-2020 at 00:52

A journalist from one of the country's last independent radio stations, Isanganiro, was arrested on Thursday January 16. This station, destroyed by rocket and then banned at the height of the 2005 crisis, had resumed broadcasting under conditions. His correspondent in the province of Karuzi, in the center of the country, Blaise-Pascal Kararumiye is detained for a paper which did not please the local authorities.

It all started from a meeting organized by the governor of the province of Karuzi for the benefit of her administration, during which Calinie Mbarushimana turned up the suspenders to certain municipal administrators, accused of interfering in the management of an endowment around 5,000 euros. An endowment that the Burundian government has granted to each of the Sangwe cooperatives, cooperatives that the CNDD-FDD party has just established in each of the 145 hills of the province, as it has done throughout the country.

Isanganiro private radio correspondent Blaise-Pascal Kararumiye, in his fifties and over ten years of professional experience, was invited to this meeting, like all his colleagues accredited in this central province of the country. His paper on the subject was broadcast on his station Thursday morning.

Karusi: arrest of radio journalist Isanganiro https://t.co/C8zku1m09K via @Radio Isanganiro

Isanganiro (@RadioIsanganiro) January 17, 2020

The local administration would not have appreciated at all the publicity given to this whole affair. The journalist was therefore summoned in the wake of the prosecutor François Havyarimana, who placed him in police custody in a police station, after having interviewed him. What exactly does he blame him for? Nothing specific so far.

This new arrest of a journalist came just hours after the adoption by the European Parliament of a resolution requesting the government of Burundi to release four journalists from Iwacu. Imprisoned for almost three months for " complicity in endangering state security ", they risk 15 years in prison .

European Parliament resolution of 01/16/2020: It confuses the periods. He thinks that #Burundi is still one of the European colonies. And to think that there are some who still believe in the resolutions of this Little Club against sovereign NON-MEMBER countries of the European Union! pic.twitter.com/eVdbBjgTMz

Amb. Willy Nyamitwe (@willynyamitwe) January 16, 2020

    On the same subject

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    Burundi: no to the taxation of sanitary napkins

    Burundi: 15 years in prison required against four journalists and their driver

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