A concerned Congolese mother

Post Date: Oct 30th, 2011 | Categories: Advocacy | COMMENT

The members of the Congolese community in Hong Kong are very concerned about the situation of high human insecurity in the whole Congo DRC. New events make it clear that the circumstances in our home country are very precarious and are getting worse by the day. Any deportation from Hong Kong would put every Congolese woman in grave danger, not only political activists or humanitarian/NGO workers, but also ordinary citizens. We therefore appeal to the UN to reassess the general situation, which forces peoples to live under very dangerous, undignified and inhuman conditions.

Recent events involving mass rapes, killing and abduction perpetrated by governmental entities and security forces, such as the ANR (Agence Nationale de Renseignements), Praetorian Guard of Joseph Kabila and members of the PPRD (Le Parti du people pour la reconstruction et la démoncratie) highlight the grave circumstances in the Congo DRC. The Congolese government is neither willing nor able to protect its citizens, since it tolerates and is responsible for:

1) Arbitrarily detaining (up to 5 years), beating and torturing returned asylum seekers.

2) Toleration the rape of 48 women per hour (based on official statistics).

3) Arresting, torturing and murdering human rights and political activists, as well as journalists, radio hosts and pastors.

4) Violent crackdown on protester and mourners.

These acts of violence and severe repression conducted by security forces under the command of Joseph Kabila, strengthen the general concern that the nationwide situation could very well escalate to the extent of a civil war especially due to the up-coming election on the 28th of November 2011. The final report of the fact finding missions of the United Nations Joint Human Right Office considers the mass rapes and other human rights violations perpetrated in the Congo DRC as crimes against humanity. We invoke the Hong Kong Immigration Department to stop returning asylum seeker to a county, which is ruled by a highly authoritarian regime that orders human rights violations on a daily basis and tolerates crimes against humanity conducted by armed groups within its own borders.

Based on all of these facts, we earnestly demand the International Community to increase their efforts in order to stop this absolute madness and invoke the UNHCR to recognize and the HKSAR to stop deporting Congolese refugees.

A concerned Congolese mother

Soldiers use rape as a weapon of terror
Soldiers use rape as a weapon of terror