December 13, 2024 10:16 (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
Congress always prioritised personal interest over Constitution: Rajnath Singh | Jaishankar calls attack on Hindus in Bangladesh 'a source of concern' | Allu Arjun arrested over woman's death in stampede during Pushpa 2 premiere show | RBI receives bomb threat in Russian language, case filed | UP teenager kills mother, lives with body for 5 days | At least six people including a child killed in Tamil Nadu hospital fire | Amid Atul Subhash row, SC says mere harassment is not enough to prove abetment to suicide | India's D Gukesh becomes youngest ever world champion in chess | Devendra Fadnavis meets PM Modi amid suspense over Maharashtra portfolio allocation | Congress wants to deviate the issue of Sonia Gandhi-George Soros link: JP Nadda

Independent UN probe reveals 'cruel and brutal nature' of human rights violations in Burundi

| | Jun 16, 2017, at 04:43 am
New York, June 15(Just Earth News): A United Nations-appointed panel of experts investigating human rights violations in Burundi on Thursday released the latest findings of their probe, noting that their initial fears concerning the scope and gravity of these abuses since April 2015 have been confirmed.

“We were struck in our investigations by the feeling of deep and widespread fear running through the testimonies we gathered,” Fatsah Ouguergouz, Reine Alapini Gansou and Françoise Hampson, members of the Commission of Inquiry on Burundi, during the presentation of their second oral briefing to the UN Human Rights Council.

The Inquiry experts said that these violations include extrajudicial executions, acts of torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment, sexual and gender-based violence, arbitrary arrests and detention and enforced disappearances, often accompanied by demands for large ransoms from families in exchange for promises to release detainees or to find those who have disappeared.

Many of these violations have been committed by members of the National Intelligence Service and the police, sometimes assisted by members of the youth league of the ruling party, the Imbonerakure, they added.

Despite the lack of access to the country and the Burundian Government's lack of cooperation, the Commission interviewed many Burundians in exile and visited Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kenya, among other countries.

Since the beginning of its investigation, it has collected more than 470 testimonies of human rights violations allegedly committed in Burundi since April 2015.

“We were struck by the particularly cruel and brutal nature of the violations described to us,” the Commission members stated, citing testimonies alleging the use, during torture sessions, of clubs, rifle butts, bayonets, iron bars, metal chains and electric cables.

Testimonies also cited needles stuck into victims' bodies or unidentified products injected into them; nails ripped out with pliers; burns; and many abuses inflicted on male detainees' genital organs.

“In several cases, acts of torture and ill-treatment were accompanied by violent insults and death threats, including of an ethnic nature,” they said.

The Commission has also documented cases of sexual violence, particularly against female relatives of government opponents, especially by people believed to be Imbonerakure.

The Commission will present its final report at the thirty-sixth session of the Human Rights Council in September 2017.

Photo: UNHCR/Kate Holt (file)

 

Source: www.justearthnews.com

 

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.
Related Images
Xi Jinping, Putin in Russia Mar 22, 2023, at 08:26 pm