In Chad, some 259 men, mainly young people, were released from prison on Saturday 8 April. They had been pardoned by the Head of State, Mahamat Déby, on March 27.
Pardoned two weeks ago, they are now free. The 259 men detained for five months were given a “release certificate “, reports Agence France-Presse.
They had been arrested on October 20, during this day of demonstration against the power repressed in blood, which the Chadians renamed “Black Thursday”. Then, on December 2, in a mass trial, held without lawyers or independent media in Koro Toro prison, all were sentenced to sentences ranging from two to three years in prison for “unauthorized assembly, destruction of property, arson, violence and assault, intentional assault and battery and disturbance of public order”.
► Read also: Chad pardons 259 people convicted of October protests
But according to several human rights organisations, many of these young men were in fact prisoners of conscience. In any case, this is the opinion of Mahamat Nour Ibédou, president of the National Commission for Human Rights in Chad. He welcomes these pardons and releases, but calls on the Head of State to go even further now.
” This presidential pardon really came at the right time in the context of the establishment of a peaceful transition. We need this kind of act which is likely to ease the climate within the framework of this Transition, he believes. However, we have always asked the President of the Transition to continue efforts to bring back those who are still outside the country and who are still dissatisfied, who are still in exile. To bring them back home because we need everyone for this transition. And so, the National Human Rights Commission is working to ensure that these comrades return to the country as well”.
This wave of releases is the second of the week. On Wednesday, 380 rebels from the Front for Alternation and Concord in Chad (FACT) had regained their freedom after also being pardoned. They had been sentenced to life imprisonment, among other things, for the “murder” at the front of former President Idriss Déby in 2021.
The opponent Success Masra tempers these releases, in particular those of the demonstrators. On his Twitter account, he explains that their only crime is to ” demanding justice and equality ” and that’ ” they do not even represent 25% of the arrested and missing whose release we still demand “.