Off the wire
• China to streamline approval process to boost private investment  • French parliament definitively approves counter-terrorism law  • Lenovo suffers loss in 2015 as global PC demand shrinks  • Xi offers condolences over Sri Lanka floods, landslides  • Drought worsens human-wildlife conflict in Namibia  • Finnish study shows prenatal exposure to air pollution increases risk of stillbirth  • China appreciates position of Vanuatu, Lesotho, Palestine on South China Sea issue  • Shanghai to get upmarket Starbucks' Roastery, Tasting Room  • More than 600,000 people migrated into Britain in 2015:ONS report  • China to bolster representativeness of developing countries at G20 summit  
You are here: 　 Home

2nd LD Writethru: DR Congo police clash with opposition supporters in Kinshasa

Xinhua, May 26, 2016 Adjust font size:

Clashes broke out on Thursday morning between police and protesting opposition supporters in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo).

The opposition supporters were protesting against a recent Constitutional Court ruling authorizing President Joseph Kabila to remain in power beyond the end of his term until the organization of presidential elections.

Clashes broke out when thousands of protesters, accompanied by their leaders, wanted to cross into a residential area where they had been barred by the authorities.

Police used tear gas to disperse the protesters.

Having come to power in 2001 after the assassination of ex-president and his father Laurent Desire Kabila, Joseph Kabila was first elected as president in October 2006 and re-elected in November 2011.

The Congolese presidential camp had announced a parallel peaceful protest in support of the Constitutional Court ruling. However, on Wednesday its officials announced the cancellation of the protest.

So far, Congolese authorities have not announced the new date for the elections that were initially scheduled to take place this year.

The National Independent Electoral Commission which is in charge of organizing elections in DR Congo, recently said it could not organize elections by the end of this year as scheduled, since it required 17 months to revise the electoral register. Endit