({{Bloomberg}}) — Opposition leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday called on the government to release all those arrested during recent protests over a contested electoral law.
“It’s not over,’ said Jean-Pierre Lisanga Bonganga, a national deputy and president of the Popular Front for the Democratic Republic of Congo, at a meeting attended by members of several opposition groups in Kinshasa. ‘‘This is the first round. We won the first round.”
Fourteen leaders of opposition parties attended the meeting held to “congratulate” the Congolese people for protesting last week against the law, according to a statement distributed to attendees. The disputed legislation was seen by critics as designed to keep President Joseph Kabila in power after his term expires in 2016.
A mixed parliamentary commission comprising senators and deputies voted on Jan. 25 to approve an amended version of the law, which no longer requires a census to be held prior to elections in 2016. The U.S. and the United Nations are among members of the international community to have called on Kabila to sign the law immediately and urge the Congolese government to publish an electoral calendar.
Lisanga Bonganga said anyone arrested for protesting against the law should be released immediately. He called on supporters to demonstrate in front of Malaka prison in Kinshasa if the authorities don’t comply. According to Lisanga Bonganga, 36 people are still being held without reason, including four policemen who he said were wrongfully charged with firing on protesters.
‘400 Arrests’
As many as 400 people were arrested during the protests, government spokesman Lambert Mende said Tuesday by phone. At least 100 were released almost immediately, he said.
Jean-Claude Muyambo, a former Kabila supporter who quit the president’s party in November 2014, was arrested in Kinshasa on Jan. 20.
“It has nothing to do with what’s happening,” Mende said on Jan. 23 of Muyambo’s arrest. “He came to Kinshasa to organize protests, and he was arrested because he faces charges of embezzlement in Lubumbashi.”
On Aug. 5, 2014 Jean-Bertrand Ewanga, secretary-general of the Union for a Congolese Nation, was arrested after an opposition rally in Kinshasa. Ewanga was sentenced to a year in prison for calling Kabila a “thief” and a “killer,” and accusing him of being from Rwanda.
{{Pro-Kabila Demonstrations }}
Human Rights Watch on Tuesday said the Congolese authorities should provide information on the whereabouts of Christopher Ngoyi Mutamba, a local activist who helped organize the recent protests and was arrested on Jan. 21.
Mutamba was being held by Congo’s national intelligence agency, HRW said in an e-mailed statement, “but authorities have not revealed where he is being detained or allowed him access to his family or a lawyer.”
At least 36 people died in the Kinshasa protests, and another four in the eastern city of Goma, according to HRW.
Thousands of pro-Kabila supporters took to the streets of Lubumbashi on Tuesday to show their support for the president in his home province, UN-backed Radio Okapi reported.
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