ISLAMABAD: As many as 3 human rights groups called Tuesday for the prompt unconditional release of 5 Burundian activists who have been charged with undermining state security and rebellion.
Burundi’s intelligence agents arrested the 5 activists, 4 of whom were set to fly to Uganda from the commercial capital Bujumbura, in February, according to AFP.
Later on, they were charged with rebellion and undermining the domestic security of the state along with the functioning of public finances, prior to being detained in Bujumbura’s central jail.
As per Burundian law, the 5 activists face up to 30 years imprisonment.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International, and the Burundi Human Rights Initiative termed the charges “baseless” and demanded they be dropped.
Immediate and conditional release of rights campaigners sought
The 3 rights bodies, in a joint statement, said that Burundi’s authorities should unconditionally and immediately release 5 human rights defenders arbitrarily arrested.
An Africa researcher at HRW, Clementine de Montjoye said that the arrests… and the serious charges brought against them point towards a worsening climate for independent civil society in Burundi.
The imprisoned activists include Sonia Ndikumasabo, who is the president of the Association of Women Lawyers of Burundi and was arrested at the airport.
Also, in detention is Prosper Runyange, a member of the Association for Peace and the Promotion of Human Rights (APDH), and was arrested the same day in the town of Ngozi.
HRW’s Montjoye warned that if working in tie-up with or receiving funds from international groups is considered a threat to state security and a criminal offense, what little space was left for civil society to operate in Burundi will be closed.
Despite continuing concerns about the rights situation, both the EU and the US, in 2022, resumed aid flows to the landlocked nation, citing political progress under President Evariste Ndayishimiye.
Ndayishimiye has been praised for slowly ending a long period of Burundi’s isolationism under ex-leader Pierre Nkurunziza’s bloody and chaotic rule.
However, he has been unable to improve its wretched record on human rights and the nation of 12 million people remains one of the poorest in the world.
Burundi had been facing US and EU sanctions over a crisis that had erupted in 2015 when Nkurunziza made a bid for a third term in office.
The turmoil left 1,200 Burundians dead and led to 400,000 fleeing the country.
