The side event focused on the situation of human rights defenders in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Since 2020, all three countries have experienced a precipitous decline in their security and human rights situations, combined with unconstitutional changes in government. The operating environment for human rights defenders and other civil society actors has become more restrictive and risky in each country.
The panel, featuring defenders from all three countries, discussed various restrictive measures authorities have adopted since achieving power through unconstitutional changes in government, in the name of the war on terror. This has resulted in drastic restrictions in fundamental freedoms, including freedoms of opinion, expression, association and assembly. The panel described this as an approach of ‘security at all costs’.
Human rights defenders – including lawyers, journalists, magistrates, and more – have particularly borne the brunt of restrictions and repression in the Sahel. Indeed, as the panel highlighted, human rights defenders have been arrested, disappeared, and forcibly conscripted into the armed forces to participate in the war effort. Many political prisoners remain in prison in all three countries and are at risk of torture and other forms of ill treatment.
The side event benefited from the attendance of Commissioner Rémy Ngoy Lumbu, Chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders in Africa and Focal Point on Reprisals in Africa. He expressed grave concern about the situation in the Sahel and support for human rights defenders in the region.
The panel took the opportunity of the Chairperson’s presence to call on the African Commission to intensify efforts, in collaboration with civil society in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, to address grave human rights violations in the Sahel region.
The side event also saw the launch of the the report “Espace civique et défenseurs des droits humains au Sahel: Convergence régionale des pratiques de répression”, published by the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint initiative by the International Federation for Human Rights and the World Organisation against Torture.
