The Togolese authorities must immediately conduct an investigation into the serious violence that took place on 29 September during a conference organized by the opposition political party Convention Démocratique des Peuples Africains (African Peoples’ Democratic Convention – CDPA), Amnesty International said today.
During the event in Lomé, several people, including MPs and journalists, were injured and had to receive medical treatment after a group of people started throwing objects at the audience and at the podium. Guy Marius Sagna, a Senegalese member of the ECOWAS parliament, was evacuated from the room with concussion. According to witnesses, members of security forces present close to the event failed to intervene.
We call on the authorities to put an end to the many violations of the rights to peaceful assembly.
Samira Daoud, Amnesty International's Regional Director for West and Central Africa
“This was an unacceptable attack on the rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. An immediate and independent investigation is needed to shed light on the failure of the security forces to intervene, and to bring those responsible for the violence to justice,” said Samira Daoud, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for West and Central Africa.
According to the testimony of a former MP who was present, the violence began when Guy Marius Sagna took the floor. “Chairs started flying through the air; projectiles including stones targeted the audience and the podium. The assailants hit everyone around them. I was hit in the head by a stone,” said Targone Sambiri to Amnesty International.
According to a journalist injured during the violence, several journalists were attacked and at least five were injured. “A dozen people came down on me and hit me everywhere. A colleague who came to help me was also hit, and another was hit with a camera tripod,” he said. In total, at least ten people were injured, according to information gathered by Amnesty International.
Brigitte Kafui Adjamagbo-Johnson, Secretary General of CDPA and MP for the Dynamique pour la Majorité du Peuple (DMP), told Amnesty International that the assailants were seated in the audience and the gendarmes, who were present close to the event, did not intervene. “I wasn’t worried because there were gendarmes. When the violence started, some people called them out, but they remained unmoved. We who were sitting on the podium were targeted.”
In a press release issued on 30 September, the director of the national police announced that “legal proceedings” had been opened, while stating that “the organizers [of the conference] had not considered it necessary to refer the matter to the relevant authorities for possible security measures.”
“Any such legal proceedings must fully comply with international standards on the right to a fair trial. There must also be a thorough review of the policing of the event and the reported failure of security forces to protect the rights of participants in the conference. We also call on the authorities to put an end to the many violations of the rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression in Togo,” said Samira Daoud.
Repeated violations of the right to peaceful assembly in recent months
On 27 March, at least three press conferences and meetings bringing together political parties and/or civil society organizations wishing to express their disagreement with a constitutional change were banned in Lomé and Tsévié and subsequently dispersed by the security forces.
In April, nine members of the opposition coalition Dynamique Monseigneur Kpodzro (DMK) were arbitrarily arrested on charges of “aggravated disturbance of public order”, and released a few days later, while authorities banned several demonstrations planned by political parties and civil society organizations. The government accused protest organizers of violent intentions to justify the bans, citing “corroborating and reliable information.”
In August, a protest meeting planned by a civil society coalition was postponed after the Ministry of Territorial Administration declared that the venue chosen was inappropriate and that holding an assembly at this venue would violate the law governing the conditions for exercising freedom of peaceful and public assembly and demonstration.
Some of these attacks on the rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression come against the backdrop of a constitutional change abolishing the election of the President of the Republic by direct universal suffrage, adopted last April by a National Assembly composed mainly of representatives of the ruling party and its allies. The President of Togo is now elected by the National Assembly and the Senate for a four-year term.