Amnesty International is calling for the immediate release of the 26 members of the African Peoples’ Party-Côte d’Ivoire (PPA-CI), the party of former President Laurent Gbagbo. The human rights NGO believes that these activists sentenced on March 9, are arbitrarily detained and this, contrary to their rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of expression and freedom of movement. . The opportunity being the thief, the NGO launched a general appeal to the government of Côte d’Ivoire on the way in which justice is rendered in the country: “We also call on the Ivorian authorities to to guarantee judicial procedures and to respect the rights guaranteed by international and regional conventions for the protection of human rights ratified by Côte d’Ivoire”, suggested Firmin Mbala, researcher at the West and Central Africa office of Amnesty International . Why does the Ivorian government have its suspenders pulled up like this? This is the question we might ask ourselves.
Why did the Ivorian Justice have such a heavy hand?
To understand the bloodshed of the international NGO, we must go back to the genesis of the case. The 26 PPA-CI activists, arrested on February 24, 2023 and placed under arrest warrant at the Abidjan House of Arrest and Correction (MACA), had gone to the premises of the investigating judge, in the Ivorian capital, to lend their support to Damana Pickass, Secretary General of Gbagbo’s party, summoned by the judge in charge of investigations and the fight once morest terrorism. The man was heard for his alleged involvement in the attack on the military camp of the second deployable battalion, located in Anokoua Kouté in the town of Abobo, which came under heavy fire from several assailants on the night of April 20 to 21, 2021 , around 1 a.m. Believing that the defendants had been guilty of disturbing public order “even without violence” in a case of personal summons, the judge sentenced them to 24 months in prison. The question that we can ask ourselves is the following: why did the Ivorian Justice have such a heavy hand for this gathering which it itself recognized as peaceful? The first explanation that one might put forward is that this heavy sentence was intended to give a warning to their mentor for all of his works, since he illustrated himself negatively by publicly tearing up the results of the 2010 presidential election. until his recent statements that some consider incendiary and harmful to the national reconciliation process underway in the country of Félix Houphouët Boigny, under the aegis of his political heir, President Alassane Dramane Ouattara. A second explanation would be linked to the fact that the imprisoned militants of the PPA-CI would have raised the Russian flag. One might, therefore, understand that the Ivorian authorities wanted, in a sub-regional context characterized by the strong progression of Russian influence, to draw a red line not to be crossed in a Côte d’Ivoire which is very clearly displays as the flagship of the French pre-square in West Africa.
Ivorian Justice will have a hard time getting rid of this image of Justice under orders
Indeed, to prevent small rivers from ending up forming a torrential river that sweeps away everything in its path, Alassane Dramane Ouattara, reputed to be Macron’s faithful ally in sub-Saharan Africa, wanted to dry up any pro-Russian leanings at the source. . But whatever the hypothesis one adopts, the impression which emerges from this condemnation is that the 26 defendants were condemned for a fault which does not exist. This is why one is tempted to believe that this is purely and simply a political trial, as the spokesperson for the PPA-CI, Justin Koné Katinan, thinks, accusing the government of to instrumentalize Justice “for political ends”. And it must be said, the Ivorian Justice will have a hard time getting rid of this image of Justice under orders. When you are in the crosshairs of President Alassane Dramane Ouattara’s power, you are the object of real judicial persecution which immediately fades as soon as you turn around to coax the Rassemblement des Houphouetistes pour la Démocratie et la Peace (RHDP). This posture of the Ivorian regime and its Justice raises questions regarding the sincerity of the reconciliation process underway in Côte d’Ivoire. That said, we must not be fooled and believe that the Ivorian opposition is an innocent victim. Indeed, it is not excluded that by opting for the defiance of the power in place, it is part of a process which aims not only to permanently occupy the front of the news and thus occupy the political ground, but also to increase his capital of sympathy with national and international political opinion by presenting himself as a martyr. In such a scenario, one might think that the Ivorian Justice has allowed itself to be trapped by the opposition and therefore serves, despite itself, the cause of the opponents in Côte d’Ivoire. And to stop being a plaything in the hands of politicians, the Ivorian Justice, as they say on the edge of the Ebrié lagoon, “must leave in that”. And that is the whole point of Amnesty International’s release.
” The country “
