Case History: Oscar Rashidi Akida
On 5 January 2016, human rights defender Mr Oscar Rashidi Akida received two threatening phone calls to his mobile phone number.
The first caller threatened to have the human rights defender arrested, while the second threatened his life and his family.
Oscar Rashidi Akida is a member of the Confédération pour le Regroupement Syndical – CORES (Confederation for the Reunification of Trade Unions) and the president of the Ligue Contre la Corruption et la Fraude – LICOF (League Against Corruption and Fraud). LICOF is a member of the Coalition Pour le Respect de la Constitution - CRC (Coalition for the Respect of the Constitution), a group that unites 33 NGOs in the DRC. The Coalition was created to put pressure on the Government to organise elections according to constitutional provisions and ensure democratic change occurs peacefully in the DRC. The coalition has also also worked on denouncing human rights violations in the country.
On 5 January 2016, human rights defender Mr Oscar Rashidi Akida received two threatening phone calls to his mobile phone number.
The first caller threatened to have the human rights defender arrested, while the second threatened his life and his family.
The human rights defender received the first call at approximately 9pm on 5 January 2016, in which the provincial director of the National Intelligence Agency – ANR in Haut-Katanga, Mr Nzita Bonana, informed the human rights defender: “there is a file on you for seeking to destabilize power by stopping work at the SNCC, a company the government has invested a lot of money in. We are going to search for you everywhere to stop you and transfer you to Kinshasa like the others” (“tu es fiché comme étant de ceux qui cherchent à déstabiliser le pouvoir en faisant cesser le travail à la SNCC, société où le gouvernement a investi beaucoup d’argent. Nous allons te chercher partout pour t’arrêter et te transférer à Kinshasa comme les autres”).
Oscar Rashidi Akida attempted to explain that he is currently not involved in any trade union activities and that he was not involved in the organisation of any strike, however the caller insisted that action would be taken against him, stating: “I know you are very popular and that you can foment the strike even at a distance. That's why we have to stop you and transfer you to Kinshasa like the others considered dangerous by the political regime in Kinshasa” (“je sais que tu es très populaire et peux fomenter cette grève même à distance. Voilà pourquoi il faut t’arrêter et te transférer à Kinshasa comme les autres personnes trouvées dangereuses par le régime politique de Kinshasa”).
Immediately following this, the human rights defender received a second call, on this occasion from Mr Kingombe, the general managing administrator of SNCC, in which Oscar Rashidi Akida's life was threatened: “You're risking death and your children are the ones who will lose” (“Tu risques de mourir et ce sont tes enfants qui vont perdre”). Before hanging up, the human rights defender replied, stating that it was a death threat and he would denounce it.
The threatening phone calls were made in response to false rumours that the human rights defender was responsible for the organisation of a strike among workers of the Société Nationale de Chemin de Fer du Congo – SNCC (National Railway Company of Congo), in the commune of Ruashi. These threats also follow the launch of an administrative enquiry against the CRC on 5 December 2015.
