Chad: Koumra agreement instituting the practice of the diya in the South arouses controversy

Street scene in Ndjamena, the capital of Chad, in March 2015. AFP / Philippe Desmazes

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1 min

Indignation in Chad within legal corporations and communities from the south of the country after the signing, a week ago, of an agreement establishing civil reparation between communities in the event of homicide.

Reparation, also called diya, is a practice specific to Muslim communities that goes wrong.

It is even against the law.

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With our correspondent in Ndjamena,

Madjiasra Nako

There was a flurry of green wood as early as Saturday, October 16 when the Koumra agreement was posted on social media. The text, which says to seek a peaceful cohabitation between farmers and breeders, provides for reparations between 1 million and 1.5 million CFA francs in the event of intentional homicide or not. Even if the text says that this provision does not exclude criminal action, it does not pass.

For the Bar Association, this text is an invitation to murder. Me Laguerre Djerandi, President of the Council of the Bar Association, expresses himself: “ 

The Chadian Bar says it is outraged by the initiative of such an agreement which could have the effect of encouraging intentional homicide, which is killing a person willfully, intentionally, deliberately, regardless of the means used. Therefore, people expressing a taste for crime could kill, knowing that civil compensation is a modest sum already fixed.

 "

Before the lawyers, organizations of people from Mandoul and the National Commission for Human Rights called for the withdrawal of this agreement which establishes a practice which was, moreover,

prohibited by a circular

signed by three ministers ago. two years. 

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