DRC pulls three media houses off air

DRC Government has pulled three media stations off air.The media houses, two close to opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba and one belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, saw their signals stopped on Monday, by the ministry of Information.“Last Friday, we just received a letter from the minister of Information urging us to refrain from broadcasting commercial advertisement allegedly because, as a private community media, we are not allowed. We do not know why exactly our signal has been stopped,” Mr Patrick Nsiala, the programme officer of the Catholic TV (RTCE) told the Africa Review.Unconfirmed reports indicated that the minister for Information, Mr Lambert Mende, had invited the affected media houses for talks.Kinshasa has been tense with Catholic faithful planning a peaceful march in the city today, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the so called “Christians massacre” on February 16, 1992 in the DRC capital.Several Christians were killed by soldiers as they were demonstrating against the closure of the national conference aimed at debating the Mobutu Sese Seko regime.According to sources close to the organisers of the Thursday demonstration, the faithful will march from various Catholic churches then meet at St Joseph Catholic Church where Mobutu’s soldiers fired at Christians in 1992.