NAIROBI: Over the next year, 15 different elections will take place across the African continent. While elections can be a prime opportunity for governments to demonstrate their respect for free speech and freedom of association, their actions in the run-up to the polls can also be particularly revealing of their real intentions.
Six of the forthcoming elections will be held in East Africa where, from Tanzania to Sudan, a wide range of legal tools hindering freedom of association have recently been put in place by the authorities.
Of utmost concern is the instatement by several governments of a policy requiring mandatory registration of NGOs, complete with burdensome registration procedures and penalties for conducting activities through unregistered organisations.
This policy effectively prevents independent civil society organisations from doing their work of protecting human rights. Coupled with the intensification of the harassment of human rights defenders, the situation does not bode well for free and fair elections.
In Uganda, several provisions of the 2015 Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) Bill provide the new NGO Board with wide discretionary powers to reject applications, monitor organisations' operations and restrict organisations' access to funding.
Although the government claims the law aims to ensure more transparency and accountability in the NGO sector, it would ipso facto severely restrict freedom of association by hindering NGO operations.
Furthermore, human rights defenders themselves are increasingly under threat. For instance, Gerald Kankya, Executive Director of the Twerwaneho Listeners Club (TLC), an organisation that combats unlawful evictions from public land, has recently been the target of physical and judicial harassment. On January 23, 2015, Mr. Kankya was assaulted along with another TLC staff member, Simon Amanyire, by approximately 30 men armed with clubs.
After they were violently wrestled to the ground, the attackers attempted to steal documents compiling cases of land grabbing. Despite the physical harm incurred by Mr Kankya, the police refused to record his complaint. Instead, Mr Kankya was prosecuted for having committed "grave assault". While his case was eventually dismissed, Mr Kankya's case gives a sense of some of the challenges that human rights defenders face in Uganda.
Likewise, in Kenya, following the attack in April 2015 by the islamist militant group Al Shabaab on Garissa University College in the north-eastern part of the country, human rights organisations have been the target of government repression. Haki Africa and Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI), which advocate for constitutional means to counter terrorism while respecting human rights, have reportedly suffered judicial harassment.
In April 2015, they were both officially listed as terrorist entities and had their bank accounts frozen. Later in May 2015, these organisations, along with the Agency for Peace and Development (APD), were unilaterally unregistered and had their licences revoked.
These decisions fly in the face of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR), which in 2014 had already expressed concerns over "some provisions of Kenya's NGO and Media bills which are not in conformity with the African Charter and other regional and international instruments on freedom of association and expression".
Other countries in the region have chosen to clamp down on independent voices by restricting access to alternative sources of information. Tanzania has developed a new legal arsenal which includes a statistics law that makes it illegal for any publications to claim data as "official" if it has not been approved by the National Bureau of Statistics.
The arsenal also includes a cybercrime law that punishes the electronic publication of "unsolicited" information and an access to information act which criminalises the spreading of "false" information.
Finally, the Tanzanian media has had its hands tied by the establishment of a media council that determines which journalists and media outlets are permitted to operate. Under these circumstances, civil society is left with no choice but self-censorship.
Freedom of association is the cornerstone of any democratic society. Independent groups documenting human rights violations, in particular, must be free to do their work so as to hold the authorities accountable. Suppressing these actors or obstructing their activities smacks of authoritarianism. Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, as well as the other States in the region and around the world, must uphold their international obligation to respect freedom of association, which includes ensuring that new legislation complies with regional and international instruments prior to its adoption.
At the same time, with political and social change in the air and the citizens of these East African countries preparing to head to the polls, the international community must remain vigilant and systematically condemn any infringement on the freedom of association, wherever and whenever it occurs.
Karim Lahidji, FIDH President
Sheila Muwanga, Deputy Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) and FIDH Vice-President
