torture - The African Mirror

Mar

2023

Journalist’s death: Businessman charged

AMINDEH BLAISE ATABONG A Cameroonian businessman has been charged with complicity in torture, a spokesperson for his business group said on Saturday after he was arrested last month in connection with the murder of a prominent journalist, Martinez Zogo. Businessman Jean Pierre Amougou Belinga was transferred from a detention centre and officially charged in Kondengui prison in the capital Yaounde on Saturday, said Ines Arielle Zamo Belinga, spokesperson for his business group Groupe L'Anecdote. "Now lawyers take over," she said in a statement, without giving further details. The justice ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Zogo's mutilated…

Feb

2023

By The African Mirror

UN rights office seeks to stay put in Uganda after being told to go

NEWS

THE UN rights office said it was in discussion with Uganda over how to continue its work in the country after the government said it had to leave, a move activists say highlights the country's deteriorating record on civil liberties. The office was set up in 2006 and has brought to light widespread rights violations by security personnel including torture, illegal detentions and failure by the state to prosecute offenders. Uganda told the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) last week that it would not renew the mandate of its office, effectively expelling the rights monitors. "We…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Libya fails to stop migrant detention abuses, as EU-backed returns soar

HUMAN RIGHTS

SARA CRETA ZINTAN, LibyaThe EU-backed Libyan Coast Guard has intercepted more than 13,000 asylum seekers and migrants at sea this year, preventing them from reaching Europe – already a greater number than in all of 2020. Those intercepted are returned to Libya and sent to detention centres where a well-documented cycle of extortion, torture, gender-based violence, and trafficking has been taking place for years. At the same time, the EU is facing intensifying scrutiny over its hand in the system due to its support for the Libyan Coast Guard – including the use of its aerial surveillance assets to coordinate interceptions and returns to…

Mar

2021

By The African Mirror

Arbitrary detention and torture in Uganda: the government ignores the law

HUMAN RIGHTS

In Uganda, there have been widespread allegations of arbitrary detention and torture of members of the opposition. Moina Spooner, from The Conversation Africa, asked Jamil Ddamulira Mujuzi, a human rights expert who has been monitoring the situation in Uganda, to provide insights into domestic laws and what they say in relation to detention of civilians by security forces. JAMIL MUJUZI, Professor, University of the Western Cape What is arbitrary detention and what does Uganda’s law say in relation to it? Arbitrary detention is when a person is arrested and detained by a government without due process and without the legal…

Aug

2020

By The African Mirror

Ugandan officials summoned before court over torture of LGBT+ youth

LGBT+

ALICE McCOOL A town mayor and senior prison official in Uganda have been summoned to appear before a criminal court over allegations of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment against a group of LGBT+ youth, the victims' lawyers have said. The court's move is seen as a positive step for sexual minorities in the East African nation, where gay sex carries a life sentence and homophobia and the persecution of LGBT+ people is widespread, yet rarely punished. Witnesses and the victims say Hajji Abdul Kiyimba, chairman of Kyengera town council, beat members of the group and bound them with ropes before…