BP 6687
Bujumbura / Burundi
Tel/Fax : (257) 22 25 85 73
acatburundi@yahoo.fr
News :
2008 :
On the International Day of Support for Victims of Torture, 26th June, ACAT-Burundi, in collaboration with the Burundian Vice-Minister for Human Rights, the UNHCR Office, the Human Rights and Justice division of the Integrated UN Office in Burundi, Lawyers without Frontiers and other civil society organisations working in the field of Human Rights, organised a public meeting.
Between 3 p.m. and 4.30 p.m., a time of intensive traffic, in Independence Square in Bujumbura, and in various strategic locations, the activists, whose T-shirts also carried messages, displayed banners supporting victims of torture.
Victims of acts of torture proclaimed their distress at the silence of the authorities with regard to the suppression of the crime of torture and demanded to be reintegrated. The demonstration received media coverage.
One must remember that the organisations defending human rights presented a petition to the office of the President of the National Assembly demanding the adoption of the draft law concerning revision of the penal code awaited for more than a year. This new penal code raises acts of torture to a separate category of crime.
2006 :
Since April this year, in the framework of ce program below, a toll free phone number has been set up to allow victims and witnesses to report these acts.
With the financial support of the European Union, the Belgian NGO Avocats Sans Frontières (ASF) and the Not-For-Profit association Action by Christian for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT-Burundi) launched in March 2006 a program of prison and detention monitoring within the framework of the project « Emergence du droit à un procès équitable pour les victimes de torture au Burundi ».
2005 :
FIACAT’s Appeal of the month of November 2005 was proposed by ACAT Burundi on "In Bujumbura, hospitals have become prisons".
World Day Against the Death Penalty : ACAT, the Iteka League, and the Association of Women Jurists, in collaboration with the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, organised a forum on the theme "Issues concerning the death penalty in Burundi" on 1 October 2005 ; a week of wide media coverage on the inhuman and degrading nature of the death penalty ; and the display of the posters sent by the Group Against the Death Penalty.
ACAT became an associate of the International Service for Human Rights which organised a training course on "International law and human rights" from 31 January to 4 February.
The participants came from Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
2004 :
ACAT, together with Search for Common Ground, organised talks with police officers in Bujumbura on 28th June (70 participants) and in Rumonge on 24th.
This was an opportunity to remind them of the absolute ban on torture and of the laws on punishing this crime. The debate became very lively when the officers learnt that in no case could they avoid punishment by claiming they were obeying orders.
The prison of Rumonge (585 prisoners crowded into buildings with no water) was visited and a mass was organised inside.
The members of the delegation met some prisoners who seemed to have been victims of torture and subsequently had meetings with the prison authorities.
2003 :
ACAT Burundi has been officially recognised by the Minister of the Interior.
