Silence after no-show for special review replies – a first in the history of the CAT

The Burundian Government had been granted an additional 48 hours until 6p.m. Sunday 30 August to respond after it complained it had not had enough timeto look into the allegations of reports by Burundian and internationalnon-governmental organizations submitted to the CAT as alternative assessmentsof Burundi’s implementation of the Convention Against Torture since its lastreview in 2014.

In an unprecedented move by any State Party to the Convention, theBurundian delegation did not show up last week to provide its replies to the CATafter the first of two sessions allotted per country reviewed. It instead sent the CAT a letter, sayingit was “surprised” the session had focused on examining information provided bycivil society’s alternative reports which it had not been sent or consultedabout. Representatives of the Burundian Government had attended the session on 28 July.

In a letterto the Burundian Ambassador to the UN, the CAT on 29 July responded that it regretted Burundi haddecided to discontinue the dialogue and reminded it of the “constant practice”of conducting reviews on the basis of the reports provided by State Parties andof any information received from non-governmental sources or publiclyavailable. It granted the authorities the standard 48-hour extension to submitcomplementary information. Experts have said that the move on the part of theBurundi shows its lack of political will to improve the human rights situationin the country.

“If a State does not even honour its legal obligations to answerquestions on torture by the CAT, imagine what it does behind closed doors!”said Gerald Staberock, Secretary General of the World Organisation AgainstTorture. “This is a wake up call about the drama that is happening in Burundi;it shows how much the special review was needed.”

Rising violence

On 30 July, the UN SecurityCouncil announced it would deploy a UN police force of up to 228 officers toBurundi to help prevent further violence in the country. The Government of Burundi had earliersaid it would not accept more than 50. The country witnessed in 1972 masskillings of Hutus by th

e Tutsi-dominated army, and in 1993, mass killings ofTutsis by the majority-Hutu population. President Pierre Nkurunziza is theformer leader of a Hutu rebel group.

An acute political crisisbroke out in the country when Nkurunziza in April 2015 announced he would runfor President a third time in a row. Large protests left 400 people dead andover 200,000 Burundian fled their country. It is in that context that the CAThad requested, pursuant to Article 19, paragraph 1 of the Convention, that theGovernment of Burundi submits, two years ahead of the scheduled date, a specialreport on how it is fighting torture and ill treatment in the country. Onlytwice before has the CAT made such a request to any Government – in the casesof Israel in 1997 and Syria in 2012.

The CAT had for thisspecial review of Burundi focused on the points it had asked the Government provide information on:

- whether reported cases of summary executions,political assassinations, arbitrary arrests, torture and ill treatment ofjournalists, human rights defenders and members of the opposition in 2015 hadled to the prosecution of security force members;

- any progress made in the investigation of the armedattack against human-rights activist Pierre Claver Mbonimpa in August 2015 andthe murder of his son a few months later (http://goo.gl/FBsdIf);

- the measures Burundi might have taken toinvestigate the allegations of torture by agents of the Service National deRenseignements (SNR) and if these have led to the prosecution of any of them;

- any measures taken by Burundi to investigate assassinations and acts of torture by members of the young Imbonerakure group against any people perceived as supporting the opposition, and whether any had been prosecuted; - the mesures Burundi has taken to implement the recommendations contained in the Committee's Concluding Observations dated 26 November 2014, (paragraph 11 a),b) and d) and paragraph 22 b)).

Generalized impunity

In its alternative report,the coalition of Burundian organizations expressed its concern that since thepolitical crisis of 2015, the country has undergone an “exponential rise” inthe use of torture and ill treatment by members of the SNR, the Imbonerakuremilitia or national police forces

It denounced the currentGovernment’s use of arbitrary detention to repress the opposition, stating thatSOS-Torture Burundi had counted 736 arbitrary arrests between December 2015 and31 March 2016, while the OHCHR office in Burundi had counted 3,477 arbitraryarrests in the year to end of April 2016.

The coalition also saidthat since the President’s third term, it had counted more and more cases offorced disappearances among members of civil society, former Burundi ArmedForces personnel or young demonstrators from neighborhoods of mainly Tutsi ethnicity. Burundi hassigned but not ratified the InternationalConvention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances.

Burundi filed its special report to the CAT on 29 June instead of 7March, while a coalition of Burundian organizations sent a joint report to theCAT on 4 July. Standard practice is that all reports submitted to the CATare uploaded on the CAT's website one week before the start of the session. TheCAT will announce its Concluding Observations on Burundi on 12 August, when thesession closes.

The organizations of the NGO coalition are: Action des Chrétiens pourl’Abolition de la Torture au Burundi (ACAT Burundi), Association Burundaisepour la Protection des Droits Humains et des Personnes Détenues (APRODH),campagne SOS-Torture / Burundi, Collectif des Avocats des Victimes de Crimes deDroit International (CAVIB), Coalition Burundaise pour la Cour PénaleInternationale (CB-CPI), le Forum de la Société civile pour le Monitoring desElections (COSOME), Collectif pour la Promotion des Associations des Jeunes (CPAJ),Forum pour la Conscience et le Développement (FOCODE), Forum pour la Conscienceet le Renforcement de la Société Civile (FORSC), Ligue Burundaise des Droits del’Homme (Ligue ITEKA) and Réseau des Citoyens Probes.

They received support from OMCT, Centre pour les droits civils et politiques (CCPR), Fédération internationale del’Action des chrétiens pour l’abolition de la torture (FIACAT), TRIALInternational, and DefendDefenders (East and Horn of Africa Human RightsDefenders Project).

All NGO reports submitted to the CAT are availablehere: http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/SessionDetails1.aspx?SessionID=1084&Lang=en

The report by the Burundian Government can be foundhere: http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/SessionDetails1.aspx?SessionID=1084&Lang=fr.
NGOs provide direct country-specific information to the members of the Committee AgainstTorture. They share this data through private NGO briefings with the CAT thattake place prior to the examination of the State party's report by theCommittee.

For more information onBurundian civil society participation at the CAT please contact sa@omct.org, or lb@omct.org for OMCT communications.

As coordinator ofcivil-society presence at the CAT, OMCT:

- communicates aheadof time with national NGOs warning them that their countries will be reviewedin an upcoming session,

- builds the reportingcapacity of NGOs on the Convention Against Torture through legal trainings intheir home countries;

- providesadministrative, logistical and financial support to NGOs to enable theirprogrammed attendance of CAT sessions and private briefings;

- provides technical,information-gathering and editorial support to effective country reporting;

- moderates the NGOprivate briefing sessions reserved for NGOs to jointly bring their concerns tothe Committee;

- recommendsvisibility opportunities for advocacy messaging during CAT sessions;