Sister Antoinette Fari, for years a prison-pastoral worker among inmates of Lubumbashi and Likasi prisons, is now under house arrest at a religious community center, according to the Vatican agency Fides, quoting sources of the Human Rights Federation based in Lubumbashi, which is concerned for the nun´s safety.
The nun was arrested and detained in December 1999, charged with helping political prisoners and acting as mediator between imprisoned Congolese Captain Masasu and an unnamed Lebanese agent in Kinshasa.
Sister Antoinette was eventually released after interventions by Cardinal Frédéric Etsou-Nzabi-Bamungwabi, archbishop of Kinshasa, and human rights groups. Later, she moved to a convent in Likasi in southeastern Congo, and a few months after the move, she was elected provincial superior of her order.
The Kinshasa government said the questioning of the nun is not a judiciary matter.
