40 held in DRC for protesting against sexual violence
Supporters of those arrested rallied on Tuesday near the Kinshasa provincial police building to demand their release.
All the people pictured have been arrested in the past year after speaking out against attempts to extend President Joseph Kabila’s term in office or participating in peaceful demonstrations or other political activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They remain in detention. Picture: Human Rights Watch.
Forty civil rights campaigners were being held on Tuesday after they staged a protest in DR Congo over sexual violence in the country’s conflict-torn central region, activists said.
“They were arrested yesterday during a silent march in Kinshasa and are still being held,” Nera Kanyinda, of a group called ECCHA (Citizens’ Commitment for Change), told AFP.
“They were going to hand in a statement to the president’s special representative for fighting sexual violence to ask the president to get involved in releasing women and girls who have been forced into sexual slavery in Kasai.”
Supporters of those arrested rallied on Tuesday near the Kinshasa provincial police building to demand their release.
The Kasai region plunged into violence in September 2016 after government troops killed a local chieftain, Kamwina Nsapu, who was opposed to the Kinshasa government.
Rebels fighting in his name are battling government forces and a pro-government militia called the Bana Mura.
The crisis is the latest to grip one of Africa’s most troubled nations, which is also struggling with turbulence over the future of President Joseph Kabila.
Twice-delayed presidential elections are due to be held in December, but Kabila has kept the country guessing about his plans.
He should have stepped down at the end of December 2016 at the end of the two-term limit set by the constitution. He is staying on under a constitutional clause that enables a president to stay in office until his successor is elected.
In the eastern city of Goma, meanwhile, the civil rights group LUCHA said police had banned it from holding a press conference on Tuesday without authorisation from the city authorities.
The press conference was to attack the conclusions of a judicial inquiry into the death of 33-year-old campaigner Luc Nkulula, who died in a fire in his home in Goma in June.
Investigators considered it to be an accident.
LUCHA, which is also demanding that Kabila step down, read out a statement in the street, saying, “We are convinced more and more that our comrade was murdered.”
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