arbitrary arrest of Felicien Tumusifu a Pro-democracy Human Rights Defender in Goma-DRC
ARBITRARY ARREST OF ACTIVIST FÉLICIEN TUMUSIFU PRO-DEMOCRACY HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER AND COORDINATOR OF THE VOICE OF THE MARGINALIZED DETAINED AT THE P2 GOMA, NORTH KIVU DRCONGO BECAUSE OF THE VIDEO WHICH HE PUBLISHED ON WHATSAPP.
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Felicien Tumusifu, the Coordinator of the Voice of Marginalized a Pro-Democracy Pressure Group based in Goma, North Kivu, DRCongo. I published a Video on WhatsApp showing Traffic Police Officers fighting among themselves because of the money from Motorcycle which they wanted to get from him. They told me to publish a message that the video was not accurate but I refused and then they took me to jail for two days. Thanks for all those who advocated for my release, thank you so much COJESKI for your advocacy.
Threats and all other forms of abuses continue to threaten the work of Human Rights Defenders in DRC especially those who are under the Military Emergency Provinces of North Kivu and Ituru.
On Wednesday October 23rd, 2024 as he moved on the streets of Goma to carry out monitoring about abuses committed by the Police in charge of Road Traffic, Felicien Tumusifu was arrested by the same Police and was transferred to P2 Offices (P2 is the Police Office in charge of investigations, where generally Human Rights Defenders in Goma are always detained from). Little information circulated until yesterday Thursday when some people made alerts in social media, and as Human Rights Defenders started getting concerned on social media, Felicien Tumusifu was released in the evening of Thursday November 24th, 2024 after two days of detention.
Cirmstances of the arrest of Felicien Tumusifu
Currently the Police Department in charge of Road Traffic has become a problem to the road users, the police officers are deployed everywhere on roads at almost each 500 meters, and all of them looking for money from road users especially those with vehicles, and in the process, they stop each vehicle that passes and once they stop they will not let you go unless you give them money, they do not care about your documents and if you have all that is required in order to drive, what they only care is about money. There have always public outcry about this practice but those in in-charge do not mind, on top of that public transport fares are extremely high in Goma currently and this has affected so many people. It was on this ground that Felicien wanted to carry out a monitoring of the situation in order to come up with advocacy approach.
We have the impression that Felicien Tumusifu is being targeted among Human Rights Defenders who should be arrested through any given pretext, less than three months he was again arrested together with others and detained in the very P2 offices for more than four days, recently as he launched a public demonstration against MONUSCO in Goma, he was a target of different security services.
Basing on these and other issues in which Felicien was in tension with various security services in Goma, we think that there is a need to pay a particular attention on his protection and improve his protection measures.
