{"id":25917,"date":"2016-06-08T01:59:17","date_gmt":"2016-06-08T01:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/burundi-frees-some-students-accused-of-defacing\/"},"modified":"2016-06-08T01:59:42","modified_gmt":"2016-06-08T01:59:42","slug":"burundi-frees-some-students-accused-of-defacing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/burundi-frees-some-students-accused-of-defacing\/","title":{"rendered":"Burundi frees some students accused of defacing president&#8217;s photo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Burundi said on Tuesday it had released six juveniles who were part of a group of 11 students jailed last week for allegedly defacing a photograph of President Pierre Nkurunziza in a school text book.}<\/p>\n<p>Authorities in the central African country have been cracking down on critics and the opposition against a backdrop of tension and violence sparked by Nkurunziza&#8217;s decision to run for a third term last year.<\/p>\n<p>Last Friday, police shot and wounded a student and a taxi driver during a protest by schoolchildren against the arrest of their colleagues a day earlier.<\/p>\n<p>Agnes Bangiricenge, spokeswoman for the ministry of justice said in a statement six of the students had been dealt with under proceedings for juvenile offenders. &#8220;After a hearing&#8230;the juvenile judge provisionally released them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecution of the other five students, aged between 18 and 21, would proceed &#8220;normally&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In another incident last month, more than 300 students of a school in the capital&#8217;s Ruziba neighborhood were sent home after being accused of defacing Nkurunziza&#8217;s image.<\/p>\n<p>Violence broke out in Burundi last year after Nkurunziza announced he would seek re-election for a third term.<\/p>\n<p>Opponents accused him of violating the constitution, which they said limited him to two five-year terms. The government cited a court ruling which they said cleared him to stand again, and Nkurunziza subsequently won re-election last July.<\/p>\n<p>More than 450 people have been killed in violence between government security forces and various rebel factions opposed to his continued rule. The United Nations estimates the year-long violence has displaced over 250,000 Burundians, who have fled mostly to Tanzania and other neighboring countries.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-12669 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/s3.reutersmedia-4.jpg\" alt=\"Burundi&#039;s President Pierre Nkurunziza walks during a ceremony in tribute to the former late President Colonel Jean-Baptiste Bagaza at the national congress palace in Bujumbura, Burundi May 16, 2016.\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Burundi said on Tuesday it had released six juveniles who were part of a group of 11 students jailed last week for allegedly defacing a photograph of President Pierre Nkurunziza in a school text book.} Authorities in the central African country have been cracking down on critics and the opposition against a backdrop of tension [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[99],"byline":[2482],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-25917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-reuters"],"bylines":[{"id":2482,"name":"REUTERS","slug":"reuters","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2482,"name":"REUTERS","slug":"reuters","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25917"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=25917"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=25917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}