8 ms·

I was detained and interrogated for 12 hours in Congo, accused of being a spy for the CIA. The whole thing was very scary.

by jrcii 10y ago

roel_v 10y ago
C'mon man, you can't just dangle that in front of us and then not tell the story.
- jrcii 10y ago
  I was on a flight to Goma which had in years past experienced some dangerous rebel activity. I studied the region intensely before going there and understood that the situation was currently safe, but sitting next to a local on the plane decided to ask him. He didn't understand my pronunciation of the rebel leader and group names (for example, Ntaganda) so I wrote them in my notebook, upon seeing them in writing he immediately understood and assured me they were not active. Later in the conversation we were discussing Hawaii, which he didn't know by name. I drew a small map of it in my notebook to see if he understood by the look of the islands since they're pretty distinctive. After landing I'm checking in and the customs guy asks for some baloney authorization papers that no one at the embassy or capital ever mentioned. When I said I didn't have them he said, "Give me $200." I said no, he said it again. I explained I was on a strict budget and even if I did have the money I wouldn't give it to him. He told his goons to search all my bags. One of his guys opens my notebook full of the names of all the rebel generals and groups in Congo accompanied by map sketches. Mind you these people have no concept of Wikipedia. I was transferred around after being detained. The first question was, "What is your relationship with General Nkunda?" (an infamous war criminal). Of course the more innocent I made myself appear, the more honed my spycraft appeared to be. After the initial interrogation I was forced into the back of an SUV with giant people on both sides of me and they refused to say where we were going. I was sure I was going to be shot and put in a ditch or a prison. After asking 100x they said we were going to the airport. We came to a fork in the road, the airport was right, they turned left. That was one of the scariest moments in my life. Fortunately we were going to the airport, but to my hotel first to get my things, I was deported back to the capital for a second round of interrogation. After that I got a professional translator who was probably one of a dozen people who spoke English well enough in the country to understand what happened. The Minister of the Interior apologized and offered to give me armed escorts to off-limit areas in apology, which I refused and can only imagine was another attempt to see if I was a spy. TL;DR I'm owed a favor by Democratic Republic of Congo's Minister of the Interior. And now I remember the whole incident was 20 hours, not 12.
jbmorgado 10y ago
I was detained together with 4 friends and interrogated in the border between Poland and Ukraine for about 2-3h just because we fill out the visa papers wrongly (they didn't agree in our stated reason for entering the country). It was actually rater amusing since I never thought nothing really bad could happen. But it shows how dangerously arbitrarily are the people taking decisions in countries where there is no real accountability for the government and its public servants and enforcement agencies.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  I travel to a lot to countries which require visas to be gotten upfront and I learnt to not fill them in myself. I use a service per country for getting the visas and never had issues since. I spent many hours at the PL/UA (going to Lviv) border before that...
jkot 10y ago
Czech game developers face 20 years of prison in Greece... They took photos of public buildings
- maze-le 10y ago
  They were released over 3 years ago, after over 100 days in jail... They were arrested for photographing a military base, wich is not exactly a public building (and illegal in every country I know of).
  - jkot 10y ago
    Case was resumed (it was never closed) a few weeks ago. If they are sentenced in Greece, our country will have to pass them to Greece.
    - maze-le 10y ago
      Uhh, I havent heard of that... I thought the thing was over in 2013!? It would be an utter embarresment for greece if they really pushed this any further.
  - Kristine1975 10y ago
    >wich is not exactly a public building (and illegal in every country I know of). Which is still all kinds of fucked up. If you don't want your government facility to be photographed build it underground.
    - maze-le 10y ago
      Yes, it is kind of fucked up. I dont want to excuse silly laws like that, but I think it is more reasonable to expect things like this if you take photos of military installations (at least more reasonable than beeing detained because you said 'someone barked at me'). And up until now I thought the case was closed, because there was no intention of espionage, but appereantly I was wrong (see: jkot in the sister-thread). > If you don't want your government facility to be photographed build it underground. You comment gave me a thought: What about the people that operate Google Earth? They must be held accountable for espionage in every counry in the world. Now 'that' is fucked up...

I was detained and interrogated for 12 hours in Congo, accused of being a spy for the CIA. The whole thing was very scary.

by jrcii 10y ago

I was detained and interrogated for 12 hours in Congo, accused of being a spy for the CIA. The whole thing was very scary.

roel_v 10y ago

C'mon man, you can't just dangle that in front of us and then not tell the story.

jrcii 10y ago
I was on a flight to Goma which had in years past experienced some dangerous rebel activity. I studied the region intensely before going there and understood that the situation was currently safe, but sitting next to a local on the plane decided to ask him. He didn't understand my pronunciation of the rebel leader and group names (for example, Ntaganda) so I wrote them in my notebook, upon seeing them in writing he immediately understood and assured me they were not active. Later in the conversation we were discussing Hawaii, which he didn't know by name. I drew a small map of it in my notebook to see if he understood by the look of the islands since they're pretty distinctive. After landing I'm checking in and the customs guy asks for some baloney authorization papers that no one at the embassy or capital ever mentioned. When I said I didn't have them he said, "Give me $200." I said no, he said it again. I explained I was on a strict budget and even if I did have the money I wouldn't give it to him. He told his goons to search all my bags. One of his guys opens my notebook full of the names of all the rebel generals and groups in Congo accompanied by map sketches. Mind you these people have no concept of Wikipedia. I was transferred around after being detained. The first question was, "What is your relationship with General Nkunda?" (an infamous war criminal). Of course the more innocent I made myself appear, the more honed my spycraft appeared to be. After the initial interrogation I was forced into the back of an SUV with giant people on both sides of me and they refused to say where we were going. I was sure I was going to be shot and put in a ditch or a prison. After asking 100x they said we were going to the airport. We came to a fork in the road, the airport was right, they turned left. That was one of the scariest moments in my life. Fortunately we were going to the airport, but to my hotel first to get my things, I was deported back to the capital for a second round of interrogation. After that I got a professional translator who was probably one of a dozen people who spoke English well enough in the country to understand what happened. The Minister of the Interior apologized and offered to give me armed escorts to off-limit areas in apology, which I refused and can only imagine was another attempt to see if I was a spy. TL;DR I'm owed a favor by Democratic Republic of Congo's Minister of the Interior. And now I remember the whole incident was 20 hours, not 12.

jbmorgado 10y ago

I was detained together with 4 friends and interrogated in the border between Poland and Ukraine for about 2-3h just because we fill out the visa papers wrongly (they didn't agree in our stated reason for entering the country). It was actually rater amusing since I never thought nothing really bad could happen. But it shows how dangerously arbitrarily are the people taking decisions in countries where there is no real accountability for the government and its public servants and enforcement agencies.

tluyben2 10y ago
I travel to a lot to countries which require visas to be gotten upfront and I learnt to not fill them in myself. I use a service per country for getting the visas and never had issues since. I spent many hours at the PL/UA (going to Lviv) border before that...

jkot 10y ago

Czech game developers face 20 years of prison in Greece... They took photos of public buildings

maze-le 10y ago
They were released over 3 years ago, after over 100 days in jail... They were arrested for photographing a military base, wich is not exactly a public building (and illegal in every country I know of).
- jkot 10y ago
  Case was resumed (it was never closed) a few weeks ago. If they are sentenced in Greece, our country will have to pass them to Greece.
  - maze-le 10y ago
    Uhh, I havent heard of that... I thought the thing was over in 2013!? It would be an utter embarresment for greece if they really pushed this any further.
- Kristine1975 10y ago
  >wich is not exactly a public building (and illegal in every country I know of). Which is still all kinds of fucked up. If you don't want your government facility to be photographed build it underground.
  - maze-le 10y ago
    Yes, it is kind of fucked up. I dont want to excuse silly laws like that, but I think it is more reasonable to expect things like this if you take photos of military installations (at least more reasonable than beeing detained because you said 'someone barked at me'). And up until now I thought the case was closed, because there was no intention of espionage, but appereantly I was wrong (see: jkot in the sister-thread). > If you don't want your government facility to be photographed build it underground. You comment gave me a thought: What about the people that operate Google Earth? They must be held accountable for espionage in every counry in the world. Now 'that' is fucked up...