Tuesday, 5 April 2011
STOP THE REPRESSION IN DJIBOUTI
April 5/2011
The president of Djibouti, Omar Gelleh, has changed the Constitution to be able to run for a third term election on April 8 and, in the process, has intensified the repression unleashed against the people. Jean Paul Noel Abdi, chairman of the Djibouti Human Rights Association, is charged and in prison while dozen others are being tortured for staging protest demonstrations.
On February 18, Djiboutian people staged a massive protest demonstration. Among those arrested on February 18 were three leaders of political opposition parties, who were detained for a day. The government has initiated judicial inquiries for sedition against the three, but has not brought charges against them. More than 100 people rounded up that day were charged with assault ("atteintes à l'intégrité physique ou psychique de la personne") and demonstrating without a permit. Here is a report by an international human rights body:
“About 80 were brought to court on February 27. After the judge dismissed 40 cases, proceedings were recessed and the justice minister, Mohammed Barkat Abdillahi, removed the judge and replaced him. Defense lawyers told Human Rights Watch that the new judge then promptly convicted 25 defendants and sentenced them to prison. Two require medical attention but have been denied access to doctors. Others remain incarcerated. According to the Ligue Djiboutienne des Droits Humains (LDDH), Djibouti's main human rights organization, these detainees are among a total of 71 political prisoners in Djibouti. The opposition had planned demonstrations every Friday until the election. However, there was no demonstration on February 25, as there was a heavy police presence at the stadium plaza, the site of previous protests, and the street leading to it. On March 3, the Interior Minister Yacin Elmi Bouh denied a permit to hold a demonstration the next day, The political opposition parties, claiming that the Guelleh administration had made it impossible to conduct a fair election, chose not to nominate candidates for the presidential election, effectively boycotting it. The government used that decision as an excuse to deny permits for rallies in front of opposition headquarters on March 25. Even though the rallies were designed to call attention to what the opposition considers objectionable policies rather than to support a candidate, the Interior Ministry said that only parties fielding candidates could hold public meetings during the two-week election cycle. The blanket ban on demonstrations contravenes article 15 of the Djiboutian constitution, which protects the rights to freedom of expression. It also violates articles 19 and 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Gelleh is facing a serious insurgency challenge by FRUD in the North and a popular protest in the country as a whole. He is trying to overcome this by repression and torture and massive rape of women as a counter insurgency tool. This should also be condemned as the time of Gelleh has passed—the message is: Gelleh go away!
Demonistrations in Sudan
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| Sudanese anti-riot police dispersing demonstrators in downtown Khartoum (FILE PHOTO) |
A string of small anti-government protests in north Sudan over the last two month have failed to gain enough traction and were swiftly squashed by the police supported by members of the country’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) who arrested dozens of activists.
Eye-witnessed told Sudan Tribune that anti-riot police units intervened to break up clashes that erupted on Monday at Khartoum University’s main campus between students calling for regime-change and those loyal to the ruling National Congress Party (NCP).
Video footages released by anti-government groups on the social-networking website Facebook have shown a handful of students clapping their hands and chanting anti-government slogans as they marched towards the main gate of Khartoum University campus in downtown Khartoum.
According to ST’s witnesses, NCP-affiliated students attacked the protesting students with metal rods as state security agents arrested and beat 20 students, some of whom sustained injuries, the sources added.
Students allied with the NCP are normally supplied with light weapons and can often act with impunity to squelch any anti-government activities in Sudanese universities.
Meanwhile, hundreds of jobless university graduates demonstrated for nearly two hours in Al-Fula town in the country’s flashpoint region of Kordofan against lack of employment opportunities.
Eye witnesses reported that the police had tried to break up the demonstrators using tear gas and batons but the protestors clashed with police who eventually had to allow the protest to proceed.
The oil-producing region of Kordofan is highly volatile and dominated in part by the well-armed Arab nomadic tribe of Messiriya which was used as a proxy militia by Khartoum during the years of civil war with south Sudan which voted to secede from the north in a referendum this month.
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