-----------------------------------------------
28 detainees released as a result of coordinated efforts of Burundian lawyers, magistrates and prison officials:
Monday, December 14th, 2009
-----------------------------------------------
The roundtable discussion held in Gitega on October 15th on the issue of pre-trial detention concluded with great promises. The hope was to achieve a similar result as the one obtained following the roundtable discussion in Bubanza, which ultimately led to the release of 45 prisoners, among which 15 juveniles.

The promises have been kept. A month after the commitments taken during the roundtable discussion, 3 lawyers left Burundi’s capital city, led by IBJ Legal Fellow - Herman Ndayishimiye-, on November 24th to head to Gitega’s prison where André Mbayabya, the Prison Director, was waiting for them. Together, they scoured prison records and identified 182 cases of irregular pre-trial detentions. Among this overwhelming figure, 28 cases were identified as requiring immediate atention. The 4 lawyers therefore met with their clients, got familiar with each of their stories and prepared their defense strategy. As agreed with Gitega’s prosecutor and the magistrates who had attended the roundtable discussion, a special court session was conducted the day after to expedite these 28 cases. The result was a resounding success: all 28 detainees were immediately released.

This is a particularly significant result in today’s Burundi: recent prison riots - first in Gitega and then in Mpimba, Bujumbura’s central prison - have thrown the light on the detrimental prison living conditions, which have gotten worse since the peak of 11,000 prisoners nationwide has been reached two months ago. Irregular pre-trial detentions overburden a prison system which is already in shambles. Prisoners are not the only one protesting against the situation: Mpimba’s prison officials have declared that they would not accept any new prisoner in the prison as long as the trial of the many pre-trial detainees is not expedited. The ball is in the court system’s court.

-----------------------------------------------
Sparking coordinated answers to pre-trial detention and educating citizens about their legal rights in Gitega
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
-----------------------------------------------

From October 14th to 16th IBJ left Bujumbura to head to Gitega, Burundi second largest city, to pursue its roundtable program and rights awareness campaigns. We already did the two hours drive in July with the visiting team from Geneva so as to visit the local prison and former participants to the June training session. We then came back in September to be formally introduced to officials and initiate the necessary contacts for organizing activities in the province.On Wednesday 14th October, after one holiday commemorating the assassination of Prince Louis Rwagasore, hero of national independence, the small IBJ car left Bujumbura with Astère, Claire and I onboard. We first went back to the same guest house where we lodged some 3 weeks before and then joined Nestor, APRODH local representative, to start with a first afternoon full of surveys. As usual, people were a bit shy and didn’t want to be the first to be interviewed. After a few minutes however, ice was broken and people were massing around interviewers and questions were answered by many participants at the same time, creating a nice mess with newcomers wishing to grab posters distributed by IBJ. This session lasted more than 3 hours, sometimes interrupted by heavy rain, a common fact during this period of the year. We were back at 6.30 in the guest house where we spent a quiet evening and we didn’t wait long before going to bed. We nonetheless took the precaution to order our breakfast in order to avoid last time surprise to wait for more than one hour to get 3 omelettes!

The day after started at 7am with our pre-ordered breakfast and we then dropped Astère at the venue so as for him to begin preparing for the event. Maître Herman Ndayishimiye, freshly recruited IBJ lawyer, was already waiting for us and replaced Astère in the car to head to the Vice Governor’s office, whom we had met 3 weeks before to express our wish to hold a roundtable and ask him to open the session. Unfortunately, he had forgotten the event and committed himself to open another roundtable. At the last minute, he nevertheless managed to free himself up to respect his initial engagement. In the meantime, the first participants had arrived at the venue, among them 6 lawyers coming from Bujumbura with Dieudonné, who has recently joined IBJ Burundi as a volunteer. After the opening speech of the Vice Governor and Astère’s welcome speech, Herman started animating the debates and introducing the problematic. Following the results reached in Bubanza, the session was once again dedicated to the question of pre-trial detentions. After having seen how pre-trial detentions were averse to the principle of alleged guiltlessness, the participants broke out into groups in order to identify the root causes of this phenomenon. Various ideas were suggested such as the lack of vehicles and fuel to allow judges to visit detainees and speed up procedures, the lack of access to lawyers or even paralegals to inform detainees of their rights. More challenging, some participants highlighted a certain shortage of professional conscience and even political pressures put on magistrates that lead to the justice dysfunction.

During the afternoon, participants were requested to reflect upon concrete solutions to put an end to this predicament. Numerous ideas were put forward, ranging from pleading the nullity of the procedure for lawyers defending long-term pre-trial detainees to making available police escorts to facilitate detainees’ transfers to courts so as to accelerate procedures. The most interesting proposal came along with the lawyers’ group suggesting to renew the operation held in Bubanza consisting in mandating lawyers coming from Bujumbura to visit Gitega prison and to point out illegal detentions. A few days after, a special court hearing could be organized where judges would statute on potential releases. Members of the penitentiary administration turned out enthusiastic and magistrates were not opposed to the proposal. Details have now to be discussed between IBJ and APRODH on how we could effectively support this effort.

After group pictures, participants went back home but the IBJ delegation stayed in Gitega for another last day of rights awareness campaign. Overall, about 1450 people have been educated about their rights in Gitega. We had a very safe night too, surrounded by several machine gun equipped security men, as the President of the Senate was also finding shelter at our guest house, even if he was hardly recognisable the next morning, as he was wearing sport suit and slippers… Our last day in Gitega went on smoothly and was dedicated to post-campaign surveys, aiming at evaluating the efficiency and visibility of our awareness efforts in Burundi. We finally left Gitega Friday at the beginning of the afternoon, after having shared a last lunch with our local partner APRODH representative and the young volunteers who helped us raising the population awareness. The drive back was a bit longer due to abundant rains making the road slippery and a few stops to buy delicious vegetables, while listening to rock music or religious preaches, depending on preferences. Anyhow, at the end of the path, it was a well deserved week-end for everyone.

Links:

• Read more about IBJ's work in Burundi on our blog

Pictures:

• Volunteer lawyer Diane preparing the defense of a client (JPG)
• Volunteer lawyer Zénon preparing the defense of a woman (JPG)
• Burundian kids hold a poster: “Burundi moves forward again" (JPG)