Category: Legal Rights

The acting head of the United Nations mission in eastern Congo said Wednesday that it would carry out a joint investigation with national police into the shooting deaths of three peacekeepers and a dozen Congolese civilians during anti-U.N. protests this week.

“As I said yesterday to the national authorities, we do not have any evidence that MONUSCO troops were firing at civilians,” the deputy chief of the mission Khassim Diagne told reporters, using the French acronym for the U.N. Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Reuters reported Tuesday that its reporter saw peacekeepers shoot dead two protesters as people threw rocks, vandalized and burned the U.N. compound in Goma, the provincial capital of Congo’s North Kivu province.

Diagne said the U.N. has the forensics capability to trace its bullets and is flying in a doctor from Kinshasa to conduct autopsies and extract the bullets for investigation.

MONUSCO is one of the U.N.’s biggest peacekeeping missions, with more than 16,000 troops and police in the eastern DRC.

North Kivu has been volatile for years but has seen a recent escalation of violence from armed groups, particularly the resurgent M23 rebels. Hundreds of angry protesters who accuse the U.N. of failing to protect them stormed U.N. compounds in Goma and Butembo earlier this week. Some threw stones and petrol bombs, broke into bases, looted and vandalized, and set fires. The deaths occurred when the protests turned violent.

Diagne said the demonstrators had been infiltrated by criminal elements who were focused on looting.

“Clearly they were trying to get away with a lot of equipment,” he said of images of people stealing sacks of rice, dry goods and other items.

He said the situation had cooled on Wednesday, but the mission remains vigilant.

Congolese security forces have reinforced the peacekeepers, and Diagne said that

North Kivu’s governor issued a strong statement late Tuesday banning demonstrations.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix, who is currently in Mali, will travel to Kinshasa on Friday to meet with officials and then continue to Goma.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has also strongly condemned the violence.

The U.N. Security Council met late Tuesday at the request of India, who lost two peacekeepers in the violence, for a private briefing on the events.

The U.N. has warned that the M23 rebel group, which was defeated by the Congolese army and special MONUSCO forces in 2013, started to re-emerge in November of last year and is well armed and equipped.

Source: Voice of America

Cybercrime police have arrested a man suspected of making death threats on social media against one of Burkina Faso’s leading journalists, authorities said.

Last month, a 35-year-old trader issued “defamatory threats, inciting violence against the person of Mr. Newton Ahmed Barry, as well as the destruction of his private goods,” the cybercrime brigade said in a statement Monday.

“Go and burn his house, raze his home completely, gather up the sand that’s left and leave the land empty,” a voice says in the recording first aired on WhatsApp.

The journalist is called a “terrorist” “who does not deserve to live.”

The police statement said the suspect had admitted to making the recording.

It was unclear why the death threats were made against Barry, a star state television reporter in the 1980s and former editor-in-chief of an investigative publication.

However, he risked the wrath of pro-Russian forces last May when he criticized on a private television channel the government’s deal to bring in Russian mercenaries to help tackle the jihadist insurgency.

Barry quit as a television presenter after the 1998 murder of investigative journalist Norbert Zongo and three of his colleagues, found riddled with bullets in a burned-out car.

Barry had heavily criticized the regime of President Blaise Compaore.

He was appointed to head Burkina’s Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) after the president’s downfall in 2014 but resigned last year. He turned his critical eye back on the country and government, enjoying a strong following on social media.

Source: Voice of America

In the aftermath of two weekend tavern shootings in South Africa that left 19 people dead, communities are asking what needs to be done.

At an informal settlement in Soweto, a township in Johannesburg, hundreds of people are trying to make sense of the brutal killing of 15 people at a tavern this weekend.

Mass killings are rare in South Africa, although gun violence is not.

Tim Thema, a leader in the informal settlement, said there’s been multiple deadly shootings in the area over the past year.

“Everybody’s got a gun in Soweto,” he said. “Whether you’re a foreign national, you are a citizen of this country, all of them, they’ve got guns and you ask yourself, what kind of country is this? We cannot live in a society where everybody’s just got guns and do wherever he pleases.”

This weekend’s violence was not isolated.

Another four people were killed by gunmen in Pietermaritzburg, a city in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.

While two people have been arrested in connection with that shooting, the assailants from the Soweto tragedy remain at large.

Government authorities said the events are not linked.

Bheki Cele, South Africa’s police minister, spoke to reporters while visiting grieving residents in Soweto Monday.

“They were about plus-130 empty cartridges of AK-47, which means those people that were there really meant business of killing,” Cele said. “We don’t believe it was terrorism. So, it’s a group of people we believe we will get the motive as soon as we find them.”

Crime has overall been on the rise in the country.

The first quarter of this year saw over 6,000 murders — the highest rate for any quarter in the last five years, according to police statistics.

Crime experts say gun control campaigns in the 1990s and early 2000s to confiscate and destroy illegal weapons resulted in a decline in violence.

But in the last decade, the progress has reversed.

Lizette Lancaster is the manager of the crime hub at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria.

“We have seen problems in policing and law enforcement where corruption has become quite rife, especially at places like the central firearms registries, where destruction of firearms were not — or often resulted in guns being sold back into the hands of criminals,” she said.

Lancaster said there are signs of improvement, with efforts to tackle corruption bringing in new, more qualified people into leading law enforcement positions.

But curtailing gun violence isn’t just about policing, she added. The country’s socioeconomic issues also need to be a priority.

“Poverty doesn’t make you a criminal. There needs to be other factors. And the growing inequality is one of that, but also just the proliferation of these organized groups are stoking the fires simply by having more people that are willing to engage in organized crime in order to feed their family.”

Soweto residents fearful of future attacks say these solutions can’t come fast enough.

Source: Voice of America

In his first oral report since beginning his job as the United Nations special rapporteur on Burundi’s human rights, Fortune Gaetan Zongo appealed to Burundian authorities to grant him access to their country to properly discharge his mandate to investigate alleged violations in that country.

Zongo noted with satisfaction that since the start of his mandate on April 1, Burundi’s return to the international scene had begun with the lifting of sanctions by the European Union, the United States and others. In return, he said Burundi has begun interacting with international and regional actors.

Additionally, he said Burundi has made some progress on human rights. He noted that Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye has pardoned more than 5,000 people in detention and freed some journalists and civil society representatives, as well. He spoke through an interpreter.

“But despite this major progress achieved since 2020, additional efforts are still necessary in the area of fighting impunity, in beefing up institutions, notably in the justice sector, the police and the army,” Zongo said. “In protecting the enjoyment of public freedoms and expanding the democratic space through effective participation of civil society and the media.”

Zongo said he intends to fulfill his mandate in an impartial manner and will examine documents from all sources regarding the human rights situation in Burundi.

However, he noted he only has access to partial information, achieved through secondary sources. That, he said, could tarnish the credibility and neutrality of his effort.

“From the height of this tribune, I would like to request of the Burundi authorities the possibility of interacting with them — visiting this brotherly country in order to better understand the realities on the ground, the country’s opportunities, as well as the challenges and priorities of that country.”

Burundi’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Renovat Tabu, said Burundi has achieved major progress in implementing reforms and promoting good governance, social justice, and freedom of expression.

He said his country was aware of the crucial role played by the council in reinforcing, promoting and protecting human rights across the world. But he added that Burundi would not accept any mechanism or political attempts to interfere with the domestic affairs of sovereign states.

The comments effectively shut the door on Zongo visiting Burundi – at least for the time being.

Source: Voice of America

South African authorities say the owner of a bar where at least 17 teenagers were found dead and four others died while receiving medical care is expected to face charges. Police investigating the mysterious deaths in Eastern Cape province say they have not ruled out the possibility the teenagers were poisoned.

South African police say they are investigating and awaiting autopsy results after the teenagers’ bodies were found at a bar early Sunday morning with no visible cause of death.

Brigadier Thembinkosi Kinana is a police spokesman.

“Whilst we understand the urgency of this matter and the anxiety of the public, in particular the affected families who want answers. We urge that we allow sufficient time for our detectives to finalize those investigations. I must also add that we have not made any arrests at this stage,” he said.

South African police say the owner is expected to face charges and have not ruled out the possibility that the teenagers were poisoned.

Spokesman Kinana said half-a-dozen of the bodies were not immediately claimed.

“We are making an appeal to parents or relatives who may have not seen their children since the past weekend to please make time to make inquiries. We are also calling upon parents whose children who may have survived the tavern incident but are still feeling sick to please visit hospitals and clinics for medical check-ups,” he said.

Police were called to East London’s Enyobeni Tavern in Eastern Cape province, where local media reported the bodies were found slumped on the floor and tables.

The tavern’s owner, Siyakhangela Ndevu, told AFP news agency that patrons had tried to force their way into the bar despite it already being packed.

But safety authorities were quick to rule out a stampede because of the lack of injuries on the bodies, some as young as 13 years old.

Eighteen is the legal drinking age in South Africa.

Lucky Ntimane is Convenor of South Africa’s National Liquor Traders Council.

“The owner had workers working there, he had bouncers, they could’ve seen, easily seen that there were minors in that establishment. But this was allowed to happen, the owner put the profits before the people. He should never ever trade in alcohol ever in his life. The license should be revoked with immediate effect,” he said.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed condolences for the families through his spokesman Vincent Magwenya.

“While the president awaits more information on the incident, his thoughts are with the families who have lost children. The president is however also concerned about the reported circumstances under which such young people were gathered at a venue which on the face of it should be off limits to people under the age of 18. The president expects the law to take its course following investigations into the tragedy,” he said.

He added that the deaths were even more tragic as they happened during South Africa’s youth month.

Youth month developed from the June 16 National Youth Day when South Africa reflects on the massacre of students during the 1976 Soweto Uprising against apartheid.

Some of the dead were also students celebrating the end of mid-year exams.

Source: Voice of America