Ferdinand Manirerekana
Ferdinand Manirerekana is a Burundian human rights defender, currently living in Kenya. He is member of the Burundi Solidarity Group, a group that has been documenting and denouncing human rights violations in Burundi. He contributes to the work of the Group through advocating against ongoing extra judicial killings in Burundi and engaging in on-line campaigns through Facebook and Twitter.
As a result of the refusal of President Pierre Nkurunziza to yield power and instead move to amend the Constitution and carry forth with elections that many saw as fraudulent, Burundi entered into a period of political violence and civil unrest in 2015. Though it had had a vibrant civil society since the mass violence of the 1990s, political and ethnic forces threatened to tear the country apart yet again. Many human rights defenders found themselves targeted and were forced to leave the country, along with tens of thousands of citizens fearing the worst.
