INTRODUCTION
The municipal elections were initially scheduled for October 2024 but the authorities announced that, due to financial issues, they would be delayed until 6th April 2025. No municipal elections have been held in CAR since 1988.
A report published in July 2024 by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN peacekeeping mission in CAR (MINUSCA) analysed the deprivation of liberty in CAR in 2023. For 2023, MINUSCA documented 431 illegal and/or arbitrary arrests and detentions by State agents affecting 1,521 victims, but also 41 illegal arrests and detention by the Central African Armed Forces (without a national law authorising it) and 25 violations by other security personnel. The report also notes the prevalence of torture and ill-treatment, malnutrition and poor access to healthcare.
The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect noted that government institutions continued to crack down on human rights defenders, independent media and the opposition. The research centre also noted that since March 2023, a predominantly ethnic Azandé armed group emerged in Haut-Mbomou and targeted Fulani and Muslim communities with threats and abductions. According to the information obtained by Corbeau News, this may have culminated in a deadly attack on 8th October 2024 in Dembia. According to the media, Azandé militiamen killed around 20 people, among them a peace activist, whose name is unknown.
On 11th October 2024, according to the information obtained by Corbeau News, the former chief of staff of the armed group Parti du Rassemblement de la Nation Centrafricaine (PRNC), Ahmat Adjibane (alias Ama), was arrested by the national gendarmerie in Bangui. Mr Adjibane is being investigated by the Central African Special Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. His arrest comes a few months after his surrender and integration into the national army.
On 14th October 2024, the Coordination des Organisations de la Société Civile pour la Paix en Centrafrique (COSCIPAC) sent an open letter to the President of the National Assembly to denounce the inaction of members of parliament in response to the “serious acts of violence and torture committed by Russian and Rwandan mercenaries against the civilian population”.
FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION
NGOs prey to criminal activity
The International NGO Safety Organisation recorded various interferences from security forces and Russian private military companies in the last months: a NGO staff member was detained during a search operation and his phone and cash confiscated. In July, six roadside robberies involving NGOs took place and, in August 2024, a NGO saw security forces seize several of its vehicles in Bangui and Bouar.
The Ministry of Justice requires international and national NGOs to submit their activity reports for the past year on short notice
Under the terms of a circular published on 15th July 2024, the Minister of State Dr Arnaud Djoubaye-Abazène requested all international and national non-governmental organisations working in the field of justice to submit their activity reports for 2023. According to the provisions set out in the document, international and national non-governmental organisations working in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice are required to submit an annual report on their activities over the past year, including their annual budgeted work plan for the following year, to the Ministry of Justice and also to the other sectoral ministries with which these organisations collaborate (article 40 of decree no. 24.098 of 23 April 2024, setting out the terms and conditions for the application of law no. 19. 002 of 16 January 2019, which governs the operation of NGOs). He gave organisations less than two weeks to comply. The department notes that sanctions will be imposed for non-compliance.
The Minister implied that several international and national NGOs, after obtaining their statutes and approvals, or signing contracts or partnership agreements with the Ministry, no longer complied with the legal provisions governing the exercise of their activities in the country.
A number of NGO managers acknowledged that until now the legal framework was not very precise and therefore not necessarily respected, but expressed concern about the possible threats to their activities.
Arrest of NGO worker for allegedly ‘plotting’ against the state
On 25th May 2024, a consultant for the American NGO FIH 360, holding Belgian and Portuguese passports, was arrested in Zemio, a town in the south-east of the Central African Republic where ethnic militias and anti-government rebels have been fighting for over ten years. Martin Figueira is under investigation for allegedly ‘plotting’ against the State in connection with rebel ‘armed groups’, according to the public prosecutor’s office in Bangui. He was arrested on 25th May by soldiers. On 16th July 2024, the Public Prosecutor listed the following charges against him: conspiracy, espionage, incitement to hatred, revolt and uprising against the government and institutions of the Republic and complicity to undermine the internal security of the State. Should his criminal culpability be established, Mr. Figueira could be sentenced to life imprisonment. Mr. Figueira started a hunger strike at the Roux camp where he is detained.
Dozens of humanitarian bases of NGOs due to close in the coming months for lack of funding
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 32 humanitarian bases of national and international NGOs will be closed on 31st December 2024, due to lack of funding. Only half of the requested funding for the humanitarian response plan in the Central African Republic was received. The sectors most affected will be food protection and security (11 NGOs), gender-based violence, child protection and environment and humanitarian action (8 NGOs), health (6 NGOs) and nutrition (5 NGOs).
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
CSOs and journalists publish articles or investigations that are vehemently denied by the authorities
On 27th September 2024, Jeune Afrique published an investigation entitled “Putin’s Soldiers: Meet the Africans who fight for Russia”. It claims that several thousand Cameroonians, Central Africans and Ivorians have been integrated into Russian troops since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Some are attracted by the financial terms, others are lured into employment contracts with Wagner, sometimes with the help of the local authorities, as in Central Africa. In a press review with RFI, the journalist corroborated the allegations with the example of a young Central African recruited by the Russian military while in a judicial police unit in the city of Bangui, with a view to going to fight in Ukraine. The Public Prosecutor’s Office of the High Court of Bangui strongly denied this and affirmed that there had never been any recruitment for combat of persons in police custody.
The information published by the newspaper <Jeune Afrique > and relayed by Radio France Internationale is totally implausible and has no legal basis. These extremely serious allegations, whose sole aim is not only to implicate the judicial police but also to discredit the Central African Republic, cannot go unanswered
- Benoît Narcisse Foukpio, the Bangui public prosecutor
A few days later, it was the turn of the Civil Society Working Group (CSWG) to produce a report that would not please authorities. The report focuses on the management of the oil sector by the authorities, as the country experiences recurring petrol shortages and the highest pump prices on the continent. The report points at a number of structural factors, and criticises the monopoly entrusted to the Cameroonian company Neptune, as well as ‘mafia-like’ practices within the administration. The report also accuses the Minister for Hydrocarbons, Arthur Bertrand Piri, of not following the IMF’s recommendations and of not resolving the conflict with the company Tamoil.
Arthur Bertrand Piri reacted first by noting that the Civil Society Working Group was a “so-called civil society group, generally tak(ing) a position against all government actions”, and claims that it is “very close to the opposition”. According to him, the report contains too many untruths, which he then detailed.