En Côte d’Ivoire, la société civile dénonce des entraves à la liberté de réunion https://t.co/3o5LuCADCn
— Le Monde (@lemondefr) August 29, 2024
Association
New restrictive civil society regulations
On 12th June 2024, the Council of Ministers adopted an Order (ordonnance 2024-368 of 12 June 2024) on the organisation of civil society and the related ratification draft law, replacing the 1960 Law on Associations. Authorities say the new regulations aim “to diligently align their organisational and operating methods with the current requirements of the fight against transnational organised crime”.
CSOs have denounced the new regulations due to several restrictive provisions in the Order, but also the fact that this was issued as an Order by the Executive and not as a draft law, requiring the scrutiny of the Parliament. CSOs are concerned about 20 articles in the Order which they say “are likely to restrict civil society’s room for manoeuvre, offering the public administration the possibility of exercising stifling supervision and control.” Some of the concerns of civil society include:
- The obligation, in its article 48, to submit annual activity reports, including by CSOs that do not receive foreign funding. The Order also allows the administration to request special reports on ongoing projects;
- Article 22 stipulates that CSOs can be dissolved through a decree issued by the Council of Ministers in case its activities “constitute a threat to public order and security, the integrity of the national territory and the republican form of the State, or which are likely to compromise social cohesion, provoke hatred between ethnic or religious groups, cause political unrest, discredit political institutions or their functioning, incite citizens to break the laws, and harm the general interest of the country”. According to CSOs, there is no possibility to appeal such a decision to dissolve an association as the Order also stipulates, in its article 53, that members of a dissolved CSO can be sentenced to a prison sentence between one and three years and fined 300,000 to three million CFA francs (approximately 500 to 5,000 USD) if they continue operating after it was dissolved, or if they knowingly organise a meeting with the members of the dissolved CSO.
On 19th August 2024, five CSOs, including Observatoire ivoirien des droits de l’homme (OIDH) and Civis Côte d’Ivoire, announced they had contacted United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor.
Expression
Adoption of Electronic Communications bill
On 7th May 2024, Côte d’Ivoire’s Senate adopted the draft Electronic Communications Law, after its adoption in the National Assembly in April 2024. The law, and in particular paragraph 3 of article 214, has been criticised by civil society and journalists’ associations as restricting press freedom. The article provides for prison sentences of up to five years and a fine of 10 million CFA francs (approximately 16,670 USD) for anyone found guilty of intercepting, disclosing, publishing or using the content of messages or revealing their existence. It is feared that it could deter investigative journalists from pursuing certain investigations.