Congolese authorities are cracking down again on pro-democracy activists in an apparent attempt to stop protests planned for this week while spreading fear and intimidation.
ExpandLUCHA protest, October 18, 2016.
© PrivatePolice arrested six activists from the youth movement Struggle for Change (LUCHA) yesterday as they were mobilizing students at a university in Goma to take part in demonstrations and villes mortes – general strikes – planned for Wednesday and Thursday. Another three LUCHA activists were arrested in Goma this morning.
On Sunday, LUCHA activist Victor Tesongo was arrested at his home in Kinshasa. Intelligence agents detained him for several hours and threatened him before freeing him without charge. Tesongo was previously jailed on trumped up charges from February 16 to August 31.
Another activist, Jean Claude Ekosa from the citizens’ movement Quatrième Voix, was abducted on Sunday in Kinshasa following a meeting with colleagues. After he got into a shared taxi, a passenger took out a gun, pointed it at Ekosa, and told him not to scream. “If you cry out,” he said, “we’re going to kill you like a dog and your family is never going to find you again.” Ekosa was blindfolded and taken to an unknown destination. He was put in a cell with five other people, and interrogated that evening and the next day about his connections to the opposition and accused of being “among those disrupting public order.” Eventually Ekosa overheard the kidnappers say he “wasn’t the target they were looking for.” Early this morning, they put Ekosa back in the car and dumped him on the side of the road near Kinkole, on the outskirts of Kinshasa, still blindfolded and with his hands tied together.
The demonstrations scheduled for the next two days were called for by a coalition of 173 citizens’ movements and human rights groups from across Congo, who published a roadmap last week on how to overcome the country’s political crisis. They also called on President Joseph Kabila to leave office at the end of his constitutionally mandated two-term limit on December 19.
The planned demonstrations coincide with a summit of regional leaders and special envoys for the Great Lakes region in Luanda, Angola, to discuss Congo’s political crisis.