DRC: what explains the decrease in human rights violations?
Military police in North Kivu, DRC, May 10, 2021 (Illustrative image).
© ALEXIS HUGUET / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
In the DRC, the Joint United Nations Human Rights Office (UNJHRO) announces a significant drop in the number of human rights violations.
20% less compared to the first quarter of 2020. It is even more spectacular for political violations, less 53% compared to those recorded in January and June 2020.
Publicity
Read more
With our special correspondent in Kinshasa
,
Sonia Rolley
First, the eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano for a time disrupted the missions of the UNJHRO.
Just like the anti-Monusco demonstrations which did not always allow it to collect information in certain places where violence was taking place.
But beyond these methodological considerations, these violations, and especially those related to political space, seem to have declined for several other reasons.
First of all, the end of the state of health emergency which has often made it possible to justify the repression of gatherings and demonstrations as well as the proclamation of the state of siege which for a time calmed the ardor of the armed groups.
But there is also the decrease in tensions between the presidential coalition Cach and its partner at the time, the FCC of Joseph Kabila.
Overall, over the first six months of 2021, there have been fewer protests and therefore fewer opportunities to crack down.
The repression continues, but in another form, the targeted repression of dissenting voices who denounce acts of corruption or a political situation.
In these cases, there are often legal proceedings, which worries the UNJHRO, even if this UN office considers that this repression is not a coordinated strategy, but the result of bad practices.
The UN, on the other hand, asks the Congolese authorities to ensure that they monitor recruitments and promotions within the security forces and even goes so far as to demand that certain officers targeted in the context of legal proceedings be removed from the front and from command posts. .
►Also read: Investigation - DRC: how to protect civilians with war criminals?
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
DRC
UN
Human rights