SOS-Torture / Burundi
Report number 35 from 6 to 13 August 2016
Monitoring of cases of torture, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and summary executions
In this report of SOS-Torture covering the period of August 6 to 13, 2016, we detail arbitrary arrests that still going on in some areas in the form of raids conducted by the police almost at a daily basis in some targeted areas of the city of Bujumbura. The concerned neighborhoods, particularly Musaga, are considered by the government as opposed to the third term of the President of the Republic.
The report also mentions the gruesome discovery of three dead bodies in the rivers. We previously reported the existence of a body floating on the river Mubarazi. In the present report, we document a second headless body found near the first in the same river Mubarazi and a third victim found in the river Ruvyironza in Gitega. None of the three victims has yet been identified.
Journalist Jean Bigirimana of the media group Iwacu is still missing more than three weeks after his abduction by individuals identified as agents of the national intelligence service.
After the attack against a Burundian journalist in exile in Uganda, the present report documents the attack with a machete against a human rights defender also living in exile in Uganda. Wounded but alive, the attack raises concerns about the safety of human rights defenders living in exile.
Prison conditions, particularly the violation of prisoners’ rights to access health care services, have recently become a serious problem within prison administrations. The present report discloses the death of a detainee in a Bujumbura prison for not having received authorization to seek appropriate treatment. He becomes the third inmate to die in prison in less than two months by negligence.
The report mentions also the release of four other high school students that were detained for several weeks in Cankuzo for scrawling the picture of the President of Burundi in textbooks.
The report will conclude with a comment on the concluding observations of the Committee against Torture published this Friday August 12th, 2016.
To consult all reports: sostortureburundi.over-blog.com
The SOS-Torture Campaign / Burundi was initiated with the aim to inform national and international opinion on the ongoing serious violations of human rights in Burundi through monitoring reports including torture, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, sexual violence and summary executions. This initiative to inform on what is happening in the country was triggered by the slaughter of a hundred people killed between 11 and 12 December, 2015 by the police and military pretending to fight rebels who attacked military camps located on the peripheries of the capital city. The affected areas are said protesters of the third term of President Nkurunziza namely Musaga, Mutakura, Cibitoke, Nyakabiga, Jabe, the two last ones being located in Bujumbura downtown.
