{A Rwandan journalist arrested and charged with “spying” in neighbouring Burundi earlier this month has been released and has returned home, Kigali’s media commission said Friday.}<\/p>\n
Etienne Besabesa Mivumbi was arrested last week carrying his voice recorder and camera in Burundi’s northeastern Giteranyi district, as Bujumbura clamped down on the media it accuses of organizing anti-government protests.<\/p>\n
Burundi has been in crisis since late April over President Pierre Nkurunziza’s controversial bid to stand for a third consecutive five-year term, a move branded by opponents as unconstitutional and a violation of a 2006 peace deal that ended 13 years of civil war.<\/p>\n
“He was released on Thursday, and in the evening he returned to Rwanda,” Rwanda Media Commission president Cleophas Barore said, adding that the charge of spying had been dropped.<\/p>\n
Several journalists who have been covering Burundi’s crisis, which has seen weeks of street demonstrations, a violent police crackdown and a failed coup attempt by a section of the army, have complained of being subjected to threats \u2013 including death threats \u2013 by members of the police or other branches of the security forces.<\/p>\n
Mivumbi was working for the local Izuba radio and Igihe.com website. He was visited by Barore in prison last week.<\/p>\n
“He told us in the presence of the prison warden that he had suffered a harsh interrogation,” Barore said.<\/p>\n
Relations between Rwanda and Burundi have been tense after Rwanda President Paul Kagame urged Nkurunziza to end his bid for a third term. Parliamentary elections are planned for June 29, ahead of the presidential vote on July 15. <\/p>\n
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