On 15 June 2015, 0ver 200 human rights NGOs urge the Democratic Republic of Congo to show respect for freedom of expression and assembly by freeing the “Filimbi activists“. Expression, Assembly The two activists were arrested three months ago, on 15 March during a pro-democracy youth workshop in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Fred Bauma and Yves Makwambala were arrested at the workshop organized to launch “Filimbi,” a platform to encourage Congolese youth to peacefully and responsibly perform their civic duties. Read the rest of this entry »
Posts Tagged ‘DRC’
Lassana Koné: an environmental human rights defender in the DRC
May 25, 2015
Koné: We want to support forest dependent communities in the protection of their natural resources and put human rights issues at the heart of forest debates’.
Lassana Koné is a lawyer in Kinshasha, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), working for Forest Peoples Programme, an international NGO working to protect the rights of those who live in the world’s forests. The International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) did an interview with him on 8 May 2015 in Banjul:
Lassana’s efforts in the DRC are focused on pushing for policy change regarding land reform and forest governance, seeking to secure community land titles.‘It’s a key moment because the Government is in the process of reforming the land tenure act. It is vital that the human rights of communities be enshrined in this process. It gives us an opportunity to ensure that the free prior and informed manner in which communities ought to be consulted according to international law, is finally ensured by national law’.
Lassana works with a number of local communities in advocating for such policies and, in doing so, shines a light on the abuses taking place around communal land and natural resources. He explains that, for the communities raising their voice can be dangerous.
‘They face a range of opponents to their demands, and these opponents can become threatening. For example many communities are being evicted for conservation projects and can be threatened by national park guards. Others find themselves face to face with powerful proponents of extractive industries. In both cases, foreign companies are usually working together with the government’.
Whist the majority of the organisation’s work in DRC is currently focused on advocacy and dialogue for policy change, they also monitor human rights abuses in forest communities and are litigating a case before the national court regarding the forced eviction of a community to make way for a national park in Kivu region.
‘We hope to bring a communication before the ACHPR regarding the Sengwer indigenous people of Kenya, who have suffered a massive forced eviction last year from their ancestral lands, when many thousands of families were evicted, with houses and possessions burned, by the Kenyan Government’s Forest Service. There have been some successful complaints with the World Bank and also statements by UN special procedures, but hope for a response at the regional level.’ But Lassana also sees other opportunities for actions from the ACHPR, particularly around the free prior and informed consultations of communities regarding the development and conservation projects. ‘This is something which the ACHPR Working Group on Extractives and the Environment is working on. We hope they will produce guidelines on this issue. But we are also engaging with the regional system in other ways: for this session we produced a shadow report on the situation facing indigenous Batwa people in Uganda, whilst we are also contemplating how to work with the Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders regarding the threats towards communities demanding their rights’.
‘We believe that local initiatives backed up by international support can ensure that forest peoples have their rights protected too’.
Lassana Koné can be contacted at lassana@forestpeoples.org
Cet article existe également en français .
Lassana Koné: Land and environmental rights defender in the DRC | ISHR.
Congolese gynecologist wins Europe’s Sakharov Prize in 2014
October 22, 2014The 2014 Sakharov Prize goes to the Congolese physician Denis Mukwege for his treatment of the victims of gang rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Congolese physician Denis Mukwege, will be awarded this year’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, European Parliament President Martin Schulz announced in Strasbourg on Tuesday.
Mukwege has been treating rape victims at a clinic in Bukavu on the Rwandan border for decades. He has performed thousands of surgeries on women to heal their injuries sustained in violent attacks, often by local militias. The 59-year-old founded a gynaecology unit and maternity ward in Bukavu in 1996, the first of its kind in the area. He has since expanded the station to an entire hospital, which he runs. The Second Congo War began in August 1998, ravaging the region. Mukwege is said to have performed over 10,000 operations on rape victims ever since.
The other finalists were Ukraine’s pro-Western Euromaidan movement and Azerbaijani rights defender Leyla Yunus.[https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2014/10/16/more-on-the-sakharov-prize-and-the-arab-nominees/]
For more information on the award see: http://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/award/sakharov-prize-freedom-thought
The 2014 prize will be awarded at a ceremony in Strasbourg on 26 November.
Congolese gynecologist wins Sakharov Prize | News | DW.DE | 21.10.2014.
for our french speakers: http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2014/10/21/le-docteur-mukwege-recoit-le-prix-sakharov-pour-son-soutien-aux-femmes-violees-en-rdc_4510098_3214.html
Kidnappings of human rights defenders in DRC continue unabated
September 16, 2014
just published two recent reports on kidnappings in DRC. The first is that on 13 September 2014, the corpse of human rights defender Mr Mutebwa Kaboko was found in a forest, eight days after he was kidnapped by an armed group. Mutebwa Kaboko was a training facilitator for the organisation Aide Rapide aux Victimes des Catastrophes – ARVC, created in 2008 to help disaster victims, especially women and vulnerable children. Now operating in the territories of Uvira and Fizi Walungu, the association has led a campaign against the phenomenon of forced marriage. He was abducted by men suspected of belonging to an armed group known as Mayi Mayi Yakutumba. [On 20 June 2014, Mutebwa Kaboko was abducted in a similar way by elements of Mayi Mayi Yakutumba. He had apparently denounced their presence in the locality of Katete. They had held Mutebwa Kaboko in the open forest for five days before releasing him.]
On 14 September two other human rights defenders, Ms Neema Bitu and Mr Jacques Muganga, were found back after being kidnapped and held for two days by members of a rebel group. The two defenders are investigators of l’Action des Femmes Contre la Torture – AFCT (Action for Women Against Torture), an organisation defending the rights of women based in the village of Mwaba Kangando/Kiliba, tens of kilometers from the town of Uvira near the border between Burundi and the DRC. The perpetrators are this time suspected of belonging to Forces Nationales de Libération du Burundi, a rebel group composed mostly of Burundian combatants and operating in parts of South Kivu in the DRC. On the night of 13 September 2014, the two defenders were able to escape from their captors while they were firing on the government army. Their colleagues found them at dawn on 14 September 2014 at approximately. During their captivity, they reportedly suffered terrible beatings and now require emergency medical treatment.
This follows the abduction and detention on 1 September 2014, of human rights defenders Mr Célestin Bambone, Ms Marie Amnazo and Ms Kongwa Tulinabo [from the Action Paysanne pour le Développement et la Promotion des Droits de l’Homme (Peasant Action for the Development and Promotion of Human Rights – APDPDH), a human rights organisation based in Mugutu, in the South Kivu province and specialising in the monitoring of human rights violations in Mugutu and surrounding villages].
THF and ISHR produce new video on reprisals against human rights defenders
August 28, 2014In this new video produced by ISHR and True Heroes Films [THF] you hear about 4 cases (from Russia, China, Sri Lanka and DRC) of reprisals against human rights defenders who have bravely engaged at the UN. It would seem that the political costs of silencing and intimidating HRDs is not high enough for certain States to desist from this terrible practice. [for more posts on reprisals: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/reprisals/]
DRC: Human Rights Defender shot and NGO office closed
May 30, 2014The Democratic Republic of Congo remains a terrible place for human rights defenders. These two recent events reported by Front Line make it abundantly clear:
1. Attempted murder of human rights defender Mr Leonard Lusimba
On 22 May 2014, human rights defender Mr Leonard Lusimba was shot in an attempted killing by a member of the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo – FARDC (Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo). He underwent surgery on 25 May, and a second operation will be necessary in the coming days. Leonard Lusimba is the regional representative of Collectif d’Actions pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme – CADDHOM, an organisation which, since the 1990s, has worked to promote human rights and peace education in different regions of the DRC, in particular in the Eastern provinces of the country where a number of armed groups are still active.
[Over recent years, numerous Congolese human rights defenders have been killed as a result of targeted attacks. In the rare cases where serious investigations have been undertaken, they have often failed to lead to results, favouring impunity.]
2. Closure of the office of human rights organisation Solidarity for Social Advancement and Peace
On 21 May 2014, the Congolese human rights organisation Solidarité pour la Promotion Sociale et la Paix – SOPROP (Solidarity for Social Development and Peace) was closed by the Direction Générale des Impôts – DGI in relation to an investigation into allegations of tax fraud. The DGI declared that it needed time to reach a compromise with SOPROP, and proposed a settlement to SOPROP of 20% of the amount it allegedly owed in unpaid taxes. SOPROP rejected the proposal on the grounds that there was no basis for the amount originally demanded. The same day, SOPROP brought a complaint to the local Prosecutor’s Office, which identified irregularities in the procedure and ordered that the medical centre be reopened. The office, however, remains sealed, and it is unknown when it will be reopened
[SOPROP is an organisation which, since its foundation in 1994, has supported victims of torture and other violence through medical, social and legal assistance. The organisation is also known for its activities in human rights education, particularly in schools, as well as for its investigations into human rights violations and corruption. In 2011, SOPROP had published a report on the corrupt practices of state companies in Kinshasa, which highlighted agencies of the DGI, amongst others.]
For previous posts on DRC: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/congo-drc/
Intimidation of human rights defender Didier Kalemba in DRC
February 17, 2014 reports that on 12 February 2014, human rights defender Didier Kalemba addressed a formal complaint to the public prosecutor’s office in the Democratic Republic of Congo in connection with a series of intimidatory acts that he has recently been subjected to. Didier Kalemba is a lawyer who has been acting as a protection officer for the Association Congolaise pour l’Accès à la Justice – ACAJ (Congolese Association for Access to Justice). His work mainly focuses on following up on cases of arbitrarily detained persons, particularly political prisoners or prisoners of conscience. Didier Kalemba received several calls from the same telephone number demanding him to halt his visits to the Ndolo military prison, or his family would regret his “stubbornness.”
[This is not the first time Didier Kalemba has received threats]
Vacancy: Protection International looking for head of office in Kinshasa, RD Congo
January 27, 2014Protection International (PI) is looking for a Head of Office in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it has been present since 2004, with a field office in South Kivu and soon in North Kivu. Must be French speaker. Deadline: 9 February. For more details see:
Situation of human rights defenders in Africa – overview by Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
November 6, 2013The OMCT and the FIDH, in the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, made an intervention under agenda item 9: “Situation of human rights defenders” at the at the 54th session of African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights [ACHPR] on 5 November.
Human rights defenders were attacked, received threats or were slandered in the DRC, Senegal and Tunisia. In some cases they were even killed, as in the DRC and in Cameroon, in a climate of impunity. Defenders, and in particular defenders of economic, social and cultural rights, also continued to be subjected to arbitrary arrests and judicial harassment in Angola, Cameroon, the DRC, Egypt, Mauritania and Tunisia. Obstacles to freedom of association were also recorded, as for instance in Angola, Egypt and Rwanda. A summary is as follows: Read the rest of this entry »
Threats and intimidatory acts against human rights defender Jean Pierre Muteba in DRC
April 22, 2013On 17 April 2013, human rights defender Jean Pierre Muteba reported to the Katanga provincial office of the ANR (National Intelligence Agency), a day after receiving a written notice signed by the new director of that agency in Katanga, DRC. The notice followed incidents in which the human rights defender noted being followed by members of the same agency and complained to colleagues of receiving several threatening telephone messages from anonymous callers. However, on this occasion he was not questioned and left after two hours.
Jean Pierre Muteba is the spokesperson for the “Cadre de Concertation de la Société Civile du Katanga” (Coalition of Civil Society Groups of Katanga), a network of civil society organisations active on issues related to human rights and justice as well as social accountability for extractive industries in the DRC’s copper-rich Katanga region.
On several different occasions after 23 March 2013, the day on which a group of Maï Maï fighters known as “Bakata Katanga” invaded Lubumbashi (Katanga’s regional capital), Muteba reported receiving anonymous intimidatory messages on his mobile phone. Three days after this invasion, which caused up to thirty-five deaths according to UN sources, ten organisations affiliated with Muteba’s coalition issued a report on the incident in which they accused certain personalities within Katanga’s security, business and political spheres of being behind the violent incident. It is believed that the threats and intimidatory acts that Muteba has faced since are closely related to the role his organisation played in denouncing those who are suspected of being behind the attack on Lubumbashi and in demanding an independent investigation of the violence.
Front Line Defenders believes that the threats against Jean Pierre Muteba are directly related to his human rights work with the Coalition of Civil Society Groups of Katanga.
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 