The DRC General Migration Directorate (DGM) authorities refused to renew Ida Sawyer, Human rights watch, RDC’s visa, causing her to immediately leave Kinshasa on 9 August 2016.
DRC government spokesperson Lambert Mende said the Congolese authorities “have no comments” on the visa refusal explaining the “the onus is on the DGM to issue or deny visas to foreign applicants”. Ida had a settlement visa which was valid until 2019. The visa was cancelled by DGM in July when she returned to Kinshasa.
Reacting to the decision, Human Rights Director Kenneth Roth described it as « a brazen attempt to muzzle reporting on the government’s brutal repression of those supporting presidential term limits. Locking up Congolese activists and forcing international rights monitors out of the country are the tactics of abusive governments”.
Congo's barring @HRW's @Ida_Sawyer is effort to muzzle reporting of crackdown against Kabila term-limit supporters. pic.twitter.com/nkaIvN6TND
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) August 9, 2016
Prior to Human Rights Watch Researcher Ida, two Global Witness activists investigating logging practices in the DRC, namely Jules Caron and Reiner Tegtmeyer, were also forced to leave the DRC in July, on grounds of fomenting revolt against the Congolese forestry industry. So was Jason Stearns, the American director of the Congo Research Group, shortly after he published a report linking massacres of civilians in eastern DRC to the Congolese army.