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Human Rights Defender facing bogus charges

On 24 January Baradine Berdei Targuio, a Chadian human rights defender, was arrested at his home in N’Djamena by masked and armed individuals. Amnesty International was informed that he was being kept at the National Security Agency (ANS), but nobody was able to see him. Although the Minister of Justice declared in February that Baradine Berdei Targuio’s arrest was legal and under the supervision of a prosecutor for “subversive activities on social media”, it wasn’t until 21 August that he was eventually presented to a prosecutor and an investigative judge. He was charged with breach of national security, illegal possession of weapons, assault and battery. Amnesty International is concerned that Baradine Berdei Targuio is being detained and prosecuted in connection with his work as a human rights defender.

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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/.

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Human Rights Defender facing bogus charges

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