Benin: human rights organizations worry about "massive" arrests
Beninese civil society and opposition parties warn of numerous arrests of activists and opponents (illustrative image) YANICK FOLLY / AFP
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4 min
Human rights organizations and opposition parties are concerned about the wave of arrests underway in the country.
They follow the deadly demonstrations of the pre-election period which left at least 2 civilians dead and wounded on the side of the police and demonstrators.
Every day, the press, social networks and human rights organizations warn about cases of people arrested.
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With our correspondent in Cotonou,
Jean-Luc Aplogan
The organization for the defense of human rights, the opponents of the interior and especially those in exile denounce "
arbitrary mass arrests
".
The first deferrals began two days after the April 6 protests.
About twenty people marched in front of the special prosecutor of Criet.
Today, it would be a hundred people according to several sources.
According to the whistleblowers, among these people would be activists, women, police forces and especially the opponents, Joël Aïvo, Alexandre Hountondji, Joseph Tamégnon, the former minister Ali Houdou arrested Sunday in Parakou and the son of an opponent in exile passing through Cotonou.
At the end of last week, Sévérin Quenum, Keeper of the Seals was questioned about the number of arrests.
"
What we are doing at the moment is to allow the judicial police units to find the sponsors, then the perpetrators of these acts and their accomplices before we can find out who did what and establish the record of the arrests,
" he said. he replied.
"Danger alert in Benin" launches the Organization for the Defense of Human and Peoples' Rights, which calls on international organizations for help.
Me Aboubacar Baparape, lawyer, president of the ODHP, speaks of several dozen detainees, perhaps even up to 150.
The goal is to silence any opposition, that is to say to nip in the bud any attempt at demonstration, whether by the population or the leaders of the resistance, especially as the motive of indictment for everything. the world is terrorism.
Me Aboubacar Baparape, lawyer and president of ODHP, the organization for the defense of human and peoples' rights
Francois Mazet
Me Aboubacar Baparape underlines in particular the hardening of the conditions of detention of Reckya Madougou, who in recent days was according to him “
deprived of all amenities in his cell, and visits and food from his mother
”.
A majority voice replies in these terms: those who are arrested have attacked the Republic and will have to answer for it.
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