18 jailed Gaza election observers: Consistent evidence is missing – Mozambique’s Human Rights Commission

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18 jailed Gaza election observers: Consistent evidence is missing – Mozambique’s Human Rights Commission

5:28 CAT | 21 Nov 2019

FILE: For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Lusa]

The chairman of Mozambique’s National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH) today told Lusa that there is a lack of “consistent evidence” for the arrest of the 18 members of opposition party New Democracy party imprisoned since 15 October.

“The evidence is not yet consistent for detention. They have to gather evidence and make the detention decision afterwards,” Luis Bitone said regarding the alleged falsification of credentials by the detainees to monitor the general and provincial elections at polling stations in Chokwe, Gaza province, in southern Mozambique.

The accusation has been rebutted by the party, which claims to have received the [accreditation] documents from the authorities, and has also been rebutted by the non-governmental Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), which links the arrests with the alleged refusal of the 18 individuals to collude in an electoral fraud after a man offered them each 1,000 meticais (€14.00).

“According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which is investigating the case, there are still steps to be taken,” which led the CNDH team to suggest, Bitone added, that “[these steps] should be taken before detention,”

As the detention has lasted for over a month, “we recommended that the detainees should be released while they wait” for the steps to be completed, he added. If not, the CNDH recommended that the 18 members of New Democracy at least be moved to a better location.

The CNDH visited the [previous] place of imprisonment of the six women and 12 men in Guijá last week, and dubbed it “inappropriate”, especially for the women. The women were “suffering more than the men”, as “they were in a very small space”, he said.

The National Commission on Human Rights will send a team to the province to check the conditions of the new prison establishment in the provincial capital, Xai-Xai, to which the group was transferred over the weekend.

Authorities reiterated, during the CNDH mission to the province, that the group is accused of falsifying documents, adding that there is a prosecution process sent from the Public Prosecutor’s Office to the court which will notify the parties.

“We are expecting this week to have news about the notification of lawyers and detainees,” Bitone said.

The CNDH has three concerns about the case, the commission chairman summarised: that the process is “swift” and that lawyers can make their case, that conditions of detention “improve”, and that there is “a fair trial”.

Bitone dismissed the argument that the provisional detention time had been exceeded and said that because it was a “quarrel case”, this period could be up to three months.

“It’s not a summary or correctional process,” he said briefly, underlining: “The problem is not that the deadline expires, the problem is with the prosecution, and with evidence that we think is not yet consistent.”

According to Luis Bitone, the CNDH is due to deliver a report of last week’s mission to Gaza to the authorities today.

A group of 27 Southern African and international civil society organisations on Wednesday called, in a statement addressed to the Mozambican authorities, for the “immediate and unconditional release” of the group, in addition to requests from the party and families.

The October 15 general and provincial elections gave absolute majority victories in all circles and votes to the Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo) and its presidential candidate, Filipe Nyusi – gaining over 90% in Gaza, where it won all 22 deputies to parliament, confirming the province as one of its traditional strongholds.

Source: Lusa