{Burundian journalist Hassan Ruvakuki, previously jailed on terrorism charges, has been granted formal “conditional release” allowing him to return to work, Reporters Without Borders said on Tuesday.}<\/p>\n
Ruvakuki, who works for French radio station RFI’s Swahili service and local broadcaster Bonesha FM, was arrested in November 2011 and handed a life sentence in June 2012, a ruling condemned by press rights groups.<\/p>\n
He was initially convicted of planning an attack by an armed group that left dozens dead, and spreading news of it afterwards.<\/p>\n
However, his sentence was cut to three years in January, and he was released in March on health grounds.<\/p>\n
The justice ministry has allowed him to return to work.<\/p>\n
“We are relieved that Ruvakuki is now officially free and allowed to resume working as a journalist,” Reporters Without Borders [RSF] said in a statement, adding it would monitor his situation “to ensure that it does not represent too great a threat hanging over his journalistic work”.<\/p>\n
Ruvakuki, who has always maintained his innocence, told RSF he was “very happy” with the decision.<\/p>\n
Burundi has been criticised for its tough stance towards the media, with the government passing a press law in June that weakened the protection of sources, and which was widely condemned by rights groups and the United Nations.<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Burundian journalist Hassan Ruvakuki, previously jailed on terrorism charges, has been granted formal “conditional release” allowing him to return to work, Reporters Without Borders said on Tuesday.} Ruvakuki, who works for French radio station RFI’s Swahili service and local broadcaster Bonesha FM, was arrested in November 2011 and handed a life sentence in June 2012, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000048971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-11118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000048971,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11118.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11118.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11118.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11118.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11118.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11118.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000048971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11118"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=11118"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=11118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}