{Burundi police say they have detained eight people accused of being members of a WhatsApp group for defaming the government and insulting public institutions.
\n}<\/p>\n
Police spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye said Thursday the eight were among 54 people arrested in the capital, Bujumbura, on Saturday. Nkurikiye says all but the eight were released the same day.<\/p>\n
Rights groups say the continued detentions are another example of the shrinking democratic space in Burundi following President Pierre Nkurunziza’s contested pursuit of a third term in office last year. Many opposed that, calling it unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
At least 500 people have died in Burundi since April 2015 in a crisis caused by Nkurunziza’s extended tenure.<\/p>\n
Patrick Nduwimana, president of the Burundi Radio Association, says the latest detentions show that the regime is becoming more totalitarian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Burundi police say they have detained eight people accused of being members of a WhatsApp group for defaming the government and insulting public institutions. } Police spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye said Thursday the eight were among 54 people arrested in the capital, Bujumbura, on Saturday. Nkurikiye says all but the eight were released the same day. […]<\/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":[2524],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-28061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-fox-news"],"bylines":[{"id":2524,"name":"Fox News","slug":"fox-news","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":2524,"name":"Fox News","slug":"fox-news","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\/28061","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=28061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28061"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=28061"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=28061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}