{"id":4914,"date":"2017-01-20T17:54:08","date_gmt":"2017-01-20T17:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/?p=4914"},"modified":"2017-01-20T17:54:08","modified_gmt":"2017-01-20T17:54:08","slug":"european-parliament-accuses-burundi-government-of-human-rights-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/european-parliament-accuses-burundi-government-of-human-rights-violations\/","title":{"rendered":"European parliament accuses Burundi government of human rights violations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>This Thursday 19 January 2017, the European parliament has written to the Burundi government, spelling out a number of accusations about human rights violations. It has also condemned the law legalising the \u201cImbonerakure&#8221;, a violent youth militia, according to the European parliament.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4911\" style=\"width: 504px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4911\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-4911\" src=\"http:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/imbonerakure-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"&quot; Imbonerakure&quot;, the youth league of the ruling party. \" width=\"494\" height=\"329\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/imbonerakure-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/imbonerakure.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 494px) 100vw, 494px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-4911\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8221; Imbonerakure&#8221;, the youth league of the ruling party.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The European parliament says its report on Burundi expresses its deep concerns at the worsening political security situation and violence occurring in Burundi since 2015.<\/p>\n<p>The parliament also said the justice system in Burundi is corrupt: &#8220;Despite hundreds of people being killed and tortured since the crisis began, many of them by the police and intelligence services, very few have been brought to justice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The European Parliament said it condemns activities of \u201cImbonerakure&#8221;, the youth league of the ruling party. &#8220;According to reports, \u2018Imbonerakure\u2019 members arrest, beat and steal possessions from residents, and also use rape as a weapon\u00bb, said the European parliament.<\/p>\n<p>In Burundi\u2019s ruling party &#8220;Imbonerakure\u00bb is a part of members who are still young. They are most often said to commit different crimes, but in a secret way. Different reports of international human rights associations show that the Imbonerakure youth violate human rights.<\/p>\n<p>According to the European parliament, &#8220;Imbonerakure&#8221; focus their attacks on opposition members: \u201cScores of opposition members and identified opponents have been killed, imprisoned, beaten and tortured in recent months.<\/p>\n<p>Imbonerakure members are also widely accused by international human rights organisations and the UN of grave human rights abuses and of impunity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The European parliament said it condemns the adoption of a new law on the creation of a national volunteer corps. According to them, the law is aimed at legalising the activities of &#8220;Imbonerakure&#8221; youth. The parliament calls for the immediate disarmament of the militia.<\/p>\n<p>Ninette Nancy Mutoni, in charge of communication for the &#8220;Imbonerakure&#8221; denies all accusations of the European parliament. &#8220;Such reports aim at tarnishing the CNDD party [Burundi\u2019s ruling party] and its Imbonerakure youth. There is no truth in anything they have said&#8221;, says Mutoni.<\/p>\n<p>Iwacu has tried to contact Burundian government members to include their point of view, but to no avail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This Thursday 19 January 2017, the European parliament has written to the Burundi government, spelling out a number of accusations about human rights violations. It has also condemned the law legalising the \u201cImbonerakure&#8221;, a violent youth militia, according to the European parliament. The European parliament says its report on Burundi expresses its deep concerns at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,670],"tags":[113,707],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4914"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4915,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4914\/revisions\/4915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}