PHA-Exch> S.OS: Kitwe Mulunda Guy has been arrested on 26 June 2008 in Lubumbashi, DR CONGO

[Claudio Schuftan]

   From:    secretariat at phmovement.org


From: Ms. Irène Mikombe

*Secretary General, *SAVE CONGO

www.savecongo.populus.org





I write to inform you that Mr. Kitwe Mulunda Guy has been arrested on 26
June 2008 in the night just after a special Radio & TV program on the
situation of torture and impunity in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
At the moment we don't know exactly where he has been detained.



Please we ask you join our efforts in publishing Kitwe Mulunda's photo and
announcing his arrest in your website.



For your information, Mr. Kitwe Mulunda Guy is a health professional and
human rights activist. Since 2005 he has been Executive Director for SAVE
CONGO in the DRC. He is a council member for the International
Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT). Also he is a member of
the Network Against Torture (Netzwerk Gegen Straflosigkeit) and the
International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organizations (IFHHRO).
He is married and he is father of a son. He has organised several
presentations on torture and impunity at the local and international level
including in the DRC ( Kinshasa, Matadi, Boma, Lubumbashi, Tshikapa) , South
Africa (Cape Town), Germany (Berlin) and USA (New York, Washington DC,
Boston).



Below is the message from Mr. Kitwe Mulunda on the situation of torture and
impunity in the Democratic Republic of Congo given on 26 June 2008 at the
Radio and TV station:



*" *Despite* widespread optimism following the 2006 elections in the
Democratic Republic of Congo, violence against civilians , political
repression, and impunity has continued. More than 300 persons linked to the
opposition including journalists and members of civil society have been
tortured brutally in the DRC in 2008. In the Eastern area in the DRC, armed
groups are accused of serious human rights violations, particularly on women
and continue to kill civilians. According to the UN Mission in the RDC
(MONUC), recruitment and re-recruitment of children has been ongoing from
early 2007 and has continued throughout the mixage process in 2008. The
newly established mixed brigades killed scores of civilians and committed
rapes and other abuses in their operations against the Forces for the
Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). A further 350, 000 people joined the hundreds
of thousands already displaced. According to Human Rights Watch, soldiers
and police killed more than 100 persons protesting corruption in the Bas
Congo provincial elections in Western DRC. The soldiers and bodyguards of
opposition leader Jean Pierre Bemba clashed with government soldiers in the
heart of Kinshasa, leaving hundreds of civilians dead. There is absence of a
mechanism for demanding accountability and punishing rights violations in
the DRC because the Congolese judicial system is characterized by political
interference and corruption.*

* *

*As a State which has ratified the UN Convention against Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Democratic Republic
of Congo should prevent torture and fight against ill treatment of civilians
in the DRC territory."*

* *

www.savecongo.populus.org
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