(This photo, taken on May 1 at Kinshasa Makala Prison and since gone viral on Congolese blogosphere, has allegedly angered the DRC government)
***
This photo shows four men branded as "common criminals" by the Congolese government but described as "political prisoners" or enemies of the state by the opposition.
From left to right:
1) Eric Kikunda, sentenced to life in prison for conspiring with death-row inmate Firmin Yangambi to set up a militia in northern Orientale Province;
2) pro-Tshisekedi MP Eugène Diomi Ndongala, who's being prosecuted on statutory rape charges as well as attempted murder on the person of President Joseph Kabila;
3) former MP Pierre-Jacques Chalupa, sentenced last year to 4 years in prison for carrying a "fake license of acquisition of Congolese nationality, a fake voter's registration card, and a fake Congolese passport"; and
4) radical opposition politician Gabriel Mokia who's been in prison for more than four years for aggravated assault for trouncing a pro-Kabila pundit live during a prime-time television political show.
No one knows, however, who painted the Hanukkiya on that prison wall nor the photographer who snapped that picture.
But the photo, which first appeared on the site of the Brussels-based anti-Kabila radio called "reveil-fm," has since gone viral on Congolese blogosphere, triggering retributive measures against the four prisoners, according to Patricia Diomi, the Italian wife of Diomi Ndongala.
"They've been subjected for about two weeks now to inhuman, cruel and degrading treatments on account of the diffusion of a photo [featuring] political prisoners Diomi Ndongala, Mokia, Kikunda," Patricia Ndongala told a presser on Thursday, April 16.
Adding:
"The people I just mentioned are denied the right to get out of their cells, [and] are subjected to violent searches. [Prison guards] practically storm their cells everyday. They throw their food on the floor [...]"
Patricia Diomi was threatening to go on a hunger strike as of Monday, May 20 if the carceral conditions of her husband didn't improve by then.
One can easily understand the alleged shenanigans pulled by the government, for the photo shows that electronic devices are "smuggled" with ease and in broad daylight into Kinshasa so-called maximum security prison.
What's more, it also shows that prisoners who can afford to bribe the warden and his minions could spend long, boring days inside the walls of Makala Prison.
***
PHOTO CREDITS: reveil-fm.com