Congo: Jailed Activists Disappear

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source
Human Rights Watch <hrwatchnyc@igc.org>
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Congo: Jailed Activists Disappear

(New York, September 1, 2000)-- Human Rights Watch today called on
authorities of the Rassemblement Congolais pour la DÈmocratie-Goma
(RCD-Goma) and their Rwandan allies to reveal the whereabouts of four
Congolese who disappeared after their arrest in Bukavu on August 29. The
four were transferred from Bukavu to Goma, another town under RCD
control and have not been seen since.

On August 26, seven persons were killed and at least forty-three injured
when a grenade was thrown into a crowd at a religious fair in Goma.
Authorities reportedly accused the disappeared activists of having
passed information about the attack to the international press.

"Spiriting people away and holding them secretly is hardly appropriate
behavior for authorities who claim to be liberators," said Peter
Takirambudde, Executive Director for Africa at Human Rights Watch. "They
must release these people or make public where the four are being held
and grant free access to their families, legal counsel, and the
International Committee of the Red Cross."

Three of those arrested, Paulin Bapolisi Bahuga, Gervais Chirhalwirhwa
Nkunzimwami, and Aloys Muzalia Wakyebwa, taught at the Institut de
PÈdagogie, and the fourth, RÈgine Mutijima Bazalake was locally known as
a civil society activist. All four had reportedly been harassed by local
authorities after they were named to a national assembly by Laurent
Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. D.R.Congo is
currently at war with Rwanda and the RCD-Goma. The four had not taken
their seats in the assembly.

Students at the Institut de PÈdagogie protested the arrest of the
teachers on August 30. At least three students and perhaps as many as
thirteen were injured when police fired into the air to halt the
stone-throwing demonstrators.

The four who were arrested have not been found at the usual lockups in
Goma and may have been sent to Kisangani or Kalemie, or to Rwanda.


For more information, please see:
D.R. Congo: Detained Dissidents At Risk
HRW Press Release, August 10, 20000
http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/08/drc0810.htm

Eastern Congo Ravaged: Killing Civilians and Silencing Protest
HRW Report, May 2000
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/drc/Drc005.htm

Casualties of War: Civilians, Rule of Law, and Democratic Freedoms
HRW Report, February 1999
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/congo/




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