AFRICA/DR CONGO - The United Nations Commission on Human Rights takes office, but repression of opponents continue

Monday, 27 April 2015

Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - "In Kinshasa thirty pro-democracy activists were arrested after participating in a seminar on the enforcement of constitutional principles, good governance and active participation in the electoral process. After more than a month, three are still illegally detained in the cells of the secret Services, without being being able to receive visits, their lawyers, let alone their families and friends". This was recalled in a note sent to Fides by the Peace Network for Congo. Young people, according to the Government spokesman, could be charged with incitement to violence, training to violent methods, undermining national security, incitement to riot and disturbance of the democratic and electoral process.
Other young people who demanded the immediate and unconditional release of their colleagues were arrested in Kinshasa in Goma.
As remarked in the note, these facts conflict with the creation of the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH), with the oath in front of the Head of State and both Houses of Parliament assembled in Congress, of the nine members of the Constitutional Court, appointed in July 2014 , and the draft law on freedom of public expression, currently under discussion. Finally, there remains the bewilderment for the mass grave containing 425 bodies discovered at the cemetery of Maluku, more than 120 kilometers east of Kinshasa.
Despite government assurances, that speaks of a collective burial, the population suspects that these are the bodies of people killed in Kinshasa during the demonstrations against the revision of the electoral law under discussion in Parliament on 19, 20 and 21 January. The demonstration was violently repressed by the police and the Republican Guard. Since then, some people are still missing. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 27/04/2015)


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