In Mali, about twenty students from the Association of Students of Mali (AEEM) were released on June 28. They had been “kidnapped” by men in civilian clothes, most of them at the end of March. According to RFI, they were in fact being held by Malian state security services. The AEEM had been dissolved on March 13, and some of its members contested this dissolution.
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They were released on Friday evening. The information was confirmed to RFI by a Malian security source and by a member of the crisis unit formed by a fringe of the AEEM the day after its dissolution.
On March 13, the Malian transitional authorities dissolved the student association due to ” numerous armed clashes “.
AEEM, a pillar
A pillar of the fight against the military regime of Moussa Traoré in the early 1990s, the AEEM has seen major figures in political life pass through its ranks. Mali. But over the years it has lost its representativeness within the student world. It has also become a stake for the control of certain campus management activities, which can bring in a lot of money. Last February, a member of the association was killed during a clash between rival clans. Weapons of war and large sums of money were found in the premises of the association.
Siriman Seydou Niaré, secretary general of the AEEM national office, and other officials of the association were placed in custody in early March in this case. The dissolution of the AEEM is nevertheless seen as an attack on the ” fundamental liberties ” by part of the association.
Demonstrations
On March 26, on the occasion of the National Martyrs’ Day, some students demonstrated against the dissolution, some of them were ” arrested by state security ” The next day and the day after, others ” arrests ” take place, always outside of any legal procedure. Some students are beaten up.
Others “ arrests ” by state security had still taken place in May and early June, according to the AEEM crisis unit. After sometimes more than three months of secret detention, around twenty of them were finally released.
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