Arrest or detention as punishment for the legitimate exercise of human rights, including the right to freedom of expression, is arbitrary and violates the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has determined that those detained solely for the peaceful exercise of their human rights must be immediately released.

Baradine Berdei Targuio’s detention comes amidst a context of general repression of those exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly in the country, particularly as presidential elections scheduled for April 2021 are approaching. More information on this situation can be found in Amnesty International’s latest press release on Chad.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has called on all member states, in its resolution 466 on prisons and conditions of detention in Africa, to release different groups of detainees amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, including human rights defenders, “in order to reduce overcrowding in prisons and curb the spread of the Coronavirus”.
 

Since 2017, Amnesty International has repeatedly documented and campaigned on cases of arbitrary arrest and detention of activists and human rights defenders in Chad and has made to the authorities recommendations to protect human rights defenders and journalists, including to ensure that they can operate in a safe environment and free from arbitrary arrest. Amnesty International has also called on the authorities to refrain from using the criminal justice system to target and harass human rights defenders and journalists for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association. For more information see Amnesty International’s 2017 report on ‘The Rising Cost of Dissent in Chad’. During its last Universal Periodic Review in 2018, Chad accepted the recommendations to develop and adopt a law to recognize and protect human rights defenders: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr20/0046/2019/en/.