Makamba : two activists from a party close to the CNDD-FDD sentenced to two years in jail

Antoine Mbaririmbanyi and Fabien Nijimbere were tried on Tuesday in a flagrante delicto trial. The two activists from the CDP party (Council of Patriots) were sentenced by the Makamba court (southern Burundi) to a two-year jail sentence. They will also have to pay a fine of 800,000 Burundi francs each. They are accused of disrupting the registration of candidates for next year’s legislative and district elections. The leader of their party, Anicet Niyonkuru, calls it a “fanciful” trial.

INFO SOS Médias Burundi

The facts for which the two men were tried date back to last Saturday. The concerned persons were arrested in Mabanda district, according to our sources who add that at the time of their arrest, they were collecting documents required to apply for the position of deputy and district councilor. These documents belonged to their peers seeking to be elected.

Witnesses say that members of the ruling CNDD-FDD party called the police and Imbonerakure (members of the CNDD-FDD youth league), accusing Antoine Mbaririmbanyi and Fabien Nijimbere of preventing holders of these documents from running in the 2025 elections. These allegations are rejected by the CDP party which claims that “our activists wanted to help other members of the party to put together files that comply with the requirements of the CENI (Independent National Electoral Commission)”.

On December 14, after their arrest, the two defendants were taken directly to a local police cell before being transferred to the provincial prosecution cell.

After their conviction, Anicet Niyonkuru, head of the CDP party, described the trial as a “fanciful judgment”. This former official of an opposition political platform in exile who returned to Burundi in 2019 after four years of exile and who was in his second exile, before being appointed to a position in the ministry in charge of media that he no longer holds, speaks of recurring persecution of his activists in Makamba province.

“Many of our meetings have been cancelled or suspended in the Vugizo, Mabanda and Nyanza-Lac districts”, he lamented.

Mr. Niyonkuru accuses administration authorities from the CNDD-FDD as a whole of “wanting to narrow the political space in this pre-election period so that only the CNDD-FDD presents candidates in the next elections”.

On October 25, another activist of the CNL, the main opposition political party, was sentenced to five years in jail and a fine of 800,000 francs for similar acts in Makamba.

Antoine Mbaririmbanyi is a legislative candidate for the CDP in the new province of Burunga while Fabien Nijimbere represents the party in the locality of Mutwazi in Mabanda.

Sources within the CDP told SOS Médias Burundi that the two men appealed the decision of the first judge on Thursday. The appeal case will be heard by the Makamba Court of Appeal.

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The building hosting the Makamba court that sentenced the two CDP party activists (SOS Médias Burundi)