Burundian authorities should immediately and unconditionally release five human rights defenders arbitrarily arrested on February 14, 2023, and drop the baseless charges against them, Amnesty International, the Burundi Human Rights Initiative, and Human Rights Watch said today.

The five human rights defenders are accused of rebellion and of undermining internal state security and the functioning of public finances. The charges appear to relate only to their relationship with an international organization abroad and the funding they have received from this organization. Two of the defenders work for the Association of Women Lawyers in Burundi (Association des femmes juristes du Burundi, AFJB) and three for the Association for Peace and the Promotion of Human Rights in Burundi (Association pour la paix et la promotion des droits de l’Homme, APDH).

“The arrests of the five human rights defenders and the serious charges brought against them signal a worsening climate for independent civil society in Burundi,” said Clémentine de Montjoye, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “If working in partnership with or receiving funding from international groups is treated as a criminal offense and a threat to state security, what little space was left for civil society to operate in Burundi will be closed.”

On February 16, Martin Niteretse, Minister of Interior, Community Development and Public Security, accused the organizations of working with an international nongovernmental organization.

Intelligence agents arrested four of the defenders – Sonia Ndikumasabo, president, and Marie Emerusabe, general coordinator, of AFJB; Audace Havyarimana, legal representative, and Sylvana Inamahoro, executive director, of APDH – on February 14 at Bujumbura’s Melchior Ndadaye Airport as they were preparing to fly to Uganda for a meeting with partners.

Prosper Runyange, the APDH land project coordinator, was arrested in Ngozi on February 14 and transferred to Bujumbura the next day. The five defenders were held at the National Intelligence Service (Service national de renseignement, SNR) headquarters in Bujumbura, then transferred to Mpimba central prison in Bujumbura, on February 17. On March 2, the high court of Ntahangwa in Bujumbura confirmed their pretrial detention.

Niteretse told the media: “The case is ongoing. The results we have at the moment show that there is a high probability that there is a risk of financing of terrorism through these funds. We must be vigilant on all points to ensure that nothing disturbs peace and public order.” Under international human rights law and standards, seeking, obtaining, and using financial resources, including from foreign and international sources, is a vital component of the right to freedom of association. Undue restrictions on resources available to organizations have a negative impact on the right to freedom of association.

The two organizations work on gender-based violence and land rights and are officially registered in Burundi. They help some of the most marginalized groups in Burundian society. The judicial authorities’ decision to pursue prosecution of the defenders, apparently solely on the grounds of their organizations’ partnership with and funding from an international organization, has triggered fears of another civil society crackdown in Burundi and undermines the president’s stated reform agenda, the organizations said.

In October 2018, the authorities suspended the activities of most foreign organizations in Burundi and forced them to reregister, which included submitting documentation that stated the ethnicity of their Burundian employees.

The government policy, based on a law on foreign nongovernmental organizations, adopted in January 2017, caused some international organizations to close their offices in Burundi because they disagreed with government-imposed ethnic quotas and objected to the requirement to provide information on the ethnicity of their staff. Some said they feared that submitting this information could put their employees at risk of ethnic profiling and targeting.

“The charges of endangering state security and rebellion against these five human rights defenders are absurd,” said Carina Tertsakian from the Burundi Human Rights Initiative. “If the authorities have questions about their sources of funding, these can be solved through normal administrative channels, as provided for by the law.”

During late President Pierre Nkurunziza’s third and final term, from 2015 to 2020, independent civil society and media were often targeted, and their members attacked, forcibly disappeared, detained, and threatened. Scores of human rights defenders and journalists fled the country and many remain in exile. There has been almost total impunity for these crimes.

Since President Évariste Ndayishimiye came to power in June 2020 and despite his promises to restore freedom of expression and association, the government’s hostility toward Burundi’s once thriving civil society and media remains. The arrests of the five rights defenders followed the conviction, on January 2, 2023, of an online journalist, Floriane Irangabiye, to 10 years in prison, on charges of “undermining the integrity of the national territory” in violation of her rights to free speech and to a fair trial.

These latest arrests and Irangabiye’s conviction reverse a brief moment of optimism after the acquittal and release, in December, of Tony Germain Nkina, a lawyer and former human rights defender who spent more than two years unjustly imprisoned on unsubstantiated charges of collaboration with a rebel group. Twelve human rights defenders and journalists in exile were convicted in June 2020 of participating in a May 2015 coup attempt. The verdict, which was only made public in February 2021, came after a deeply flawed trial during which the defendants were absent and did not have legal representation, flouting the most basic due process principles. The 12 were found guilty of “attacks on the authority of the State,” “assassinations,” and “destruction.”

The arrest of Ndikumasabo, Emerusabe, Havyarimana, Inamahoro, and Runyange appears to be designed to punish the human rights defenders and their organizations for collaborating with an international organization, obstruct their organizations’ activities, and intimidate other activists. Such behavior belies Burundian authorities’ claims that they respect human rights and further stains the image of openness and reform that they try to project internationally, the organizations said.

“Actions speak louder than words,” said Flavia Mwangovya, Deputy Regional Director at Amnesty International. “If the Burundian authorities want their human rights promises to be taken seriously, they should allow civil society to do its valuable work – including defending and assisting victims of human rights violations – without harassment.”

A bill introduced in Uganda’s Parliament criminalizing same-sex conduct and sexual and gender identity, if adopted, would violate multiple fundamental rights, Human Rights Watch said today. Among others, such a law would violate the rights to freedom of expression and association privacy, equality, and nondiscrimination.

On March 9, 2023, Asuman Basalirwa, a member of parliament, introduced the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Parliament. The bill is a revised and more egregious version of the 2014 Anti-Homosexuality Act, which reinforced existing prison sentences for same-sex conduct and outlawed the “promotion of homosexuality,” but was struck down by a court on procedural grounds.

“One of the most extreme features of this new bill is that it criminalizes people simply for being who they are as well as further infringing on the rights to privacy, and freedoms of expression and association that are already compromised in Uganda,” said Oryem Nyeko, Uganda researcher at Human Rights Watch, “Ugandan politicians should focus on passing laws that protect vulnerable minorities and affirm fundamental rights and stop targeting LGBT people for political capital.”

Like its predecessor, the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill expands on the criminalization of same sex acts, including broad prohibitions on acts such as touching another person “with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.” People found guilty of the “offense of homosexuality” may be imprisoned for up to 10 years.

But the bill goes much further by also criminalizing any person who “holds out as a lesbian, gay, transgender, a queer, or any other sexual or gender identity that is contrary to the binary categories of male and female,” with a punishment of up to ten years in prison. In addition, the bill makes it a crime to “purport to contract a marriage with another person of the same sex.” The bill includes a punishment of up to five years in prison for the “promotion of homosexuality.” It also effectively declares all same-sex conduct as nonconsensual.

Uganda’s penal code already punishes “carnal knowledge against the order of nature,” which is interpreted to mean homosexual relations, with a punishment of life in prison, although the provision, a colonial remnant, is rarely enforced. In introducing the bill, Basaliriwa said its purpose was to “look at this colonial law and have it in tandem with the current situation.”

The reintroduction of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill follows months of hostile rhetoric against sexual and gender minorities by public figures in Uganda, as well as government crackdowns on LGBT-rights groups and other human rights groups, government critics, and civil society.

On August 3, 2022, Uganda’s National Bureau for Nongovernmental Organizations banned Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), a prominent LGBT rights organization, for not having officially registered with it. The government had previously refused to approve SMUG’s name – a requirement to register as a nongovernmental organization – saying that a group that advocates for the rights and well-being of LGBT people is “undesirable and unregistrable.”

A January 2023 draft report by the bureau identified 26 nongovernmental organizations, including SMUG, that it accused of “promoting homosexuality” and luring schoolchildren into homosexuality through “forced recruitment.” The report recommends barring any groups identified as “promoting LGBTIQ activities” from operating, and suggests that individual activists should be publicly profiled, to prevent them from any further civil society engagement.

On January 25, the parliamentary deputy speaker, Thomas Tayebwa, urged the Internal Affairs Ministry to investigate the activities of the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum (HRAPF), an LGBT and sex-worker-rights group. Tayebwa alleged that HRAPF facilitated the passing of a Kasese district bylaw that recognizes the need to protect key populations including gender and sexual minorities from HIV and tuberculosis, in keeping with Uganda’s own health policies to combat HIV/AIDS.

On February 5, Maj. Gen. Francis Takirwa the deputy commander of land forces in the Ugandan military, used the handover of a renovated community health facility to call for excluding gay people from receiving health services, saying, “Don’t use our health facilities to treat homosexuals.” On February 24, the state minister for sports, Peter Ogwang, called for the introduction of the death penalty for same-sex conduct.

The introduction of the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Bill is not the first time Parliament has attempted to recriminalize homosexuality since the 2014 Act was struck down. In 2021, Parliament approved the Sexual Offenses Bill, which criminalized any “sexual act between persons of the same gender,” as well as anal sex between people of any gender, with up to 10 years in prison. On August 3, 2021, President Yoweri Museveni rejected the Sexual Offenses Bill and returned it to Parliament, stating that it covered offenses already provided for in the Penal Code.

The continued criminalization of same sex conduct and crackdowns on sexual minorities in Uganda has had far reaching impacts, Human Rights Watch said. Within five months of the passing of the 2013 Anti-Homosexuality Act LGBT people faced a notable increase in arbitrary arrests, police abuse and extortion, loss of employment, evictions and homelessness, and scores fled the country.

“The Ugandan government’s targeting of a vulnerable minority and distracting attention from a broader clampdown on rights groups is an all too familiar tactic,” said Nyeko, “What the government is attempting should set off alarm bells among civil society groups in Uganda, and in the international community, as it signals increased repression and the stifling of opposition voices and civil society groups across the board.”