A/HRC/10/58 page 10 29. Besides opposition members or supporters, others have also been subjected to threats and ill-treatment. Human rights activists and journalists regularly face death threats, intimidation and harassment, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, arbitrary arrests and detention and violations of their rights to freedom of movement, speech and association. Since mid-2007, the UNJHRO has documented 149 cases of human rights violations committed against human rights activists and journalists, in particular those who are actively involved in the fight against impunity. The main perpetrators were political and administrative authorities, especially in remote areas, elements of the FARDC, the Republican Guard, the PNC, ANR and other security forces. 30. The most emblematic case in this context is that of the murder, on 17 June 2007 of Radio Okapi journalist Serge Maheshe by unidentified gunmen in Bukavu, South Kivu. On 18 June 2007 the police arrested two FARDC soldiers suspected of carrying out the killing, and the Bukavu Military Tribunal held a public hearing at which these suspects appeared alongside 10 civilians. Two weeks later, however, two friends of the victim, who had been considered the only eyewitnesses to the crime, were arrested as the main suspects in the case, along with two other civilians who had allegedly confessed to the crime. On 28 August 2007, the Bukavu Military Tribunal convicted and sentenced the four civilians to death and acquitted the two FARDC suspects originally accused of the crime. The defense appealed the decision. On 8 September 2007, the two accused who had confessed to having committed the crime retracting their statements, accusing two magistrates from the Office of the Military Prosecutor of Bukavu of having pressured them into making false statements. 31. On 17 September 2007, MONUC addressed a letter to the authorities calling for a thorough investigation into the allegations brought against the magistrates, but no such investigation was conducted. MONUC prepared a detailed report on the trial which was transmitted to the Congolese authorities. The report concluded that the Bukavu Military Tribunal did not conduct an impartial trial in accordance with national and international due process standards. The report documented the lack of an in-depth investigation, important contradictions in the declarations of the accused who confessed to the crime, the persistent refusal of the tribunal to investigate other credible leads and to proceed with ballistic and medico-legal verifications which MONUC offered to facilitate. 32. The appeal trial, which began on 6 February 2008, was characterized by similar irregularities. No further investigations were conducted by the Court and no ballistic evidence was presented. Defense lawyers were frequently interrupted or prevented from speaking to the Court or to their clients, and were systematically censored when trying to question the Court’s partiality. The trial was conducted in a climate of intimidation; several independent observers from local and international NGOs, as well as three lawyers for the defense, received death threats. On 21 May 2008, the Court upheld the convictions and death penalties handed down to the two civilians accused of carrying out the murder, and acquitted the two eyewitnesses to the crime. Bizarrely, a third civilian, who had been acquitted in the original trial, was also sentenced to death for criminal conspiracy. On 22 May 2008, the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in the Democratic Republic of the Congo issued a joint communiqué welcoming the release of Maheshe’s two friends, but criticizing the death sentences handed down to the three civilians. They also denounced irregularities in the trial, stating that the Court had refused to explore credible leads in the case and to ask for ballistic expertise.