The Congolese Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH) recommended on Monday that the Congolese government adopt a new Penal Code that should include the crime of torture; question of better repressing this scourge. This NGO has recorded at least 80 cases of torture over the past fifteen months, all attributed to law enforcement agents.
With our correspondent in Brazzaville, Loicia Martial
This recommendation was formulated by the OCDH following the publication of a position paper on the recurrence and resurgence of police violence. Franck Chardin Aubin Tchibinda, executive director of the OCDH, wants this legal void to be corrected.
“ The penal code exists, but it has never taken into account the concept of torture. What we are asking the government is to revise the code by inserting, this time, this notion which should be defined and repressed “, he remarked.
” We believe that the fact that torture is not defined in the penal code, this causes the licentiousness of the police who allow themselves to commit barbaric acts on the populations “, estimated Mr. Tchibinda.
On February 9, Congolese justice sentenced to ten years of forced labor four police officers tried for “ intentional assault resulting in the death of a man and the infirmity of seven others “. For the OCDH, the sentences handed down were not severe given the seriousness of the acts committed.