In an effort to stem violence in the coming weeks, 72 Congolese and 15 international human rights organizations issued a statement on Friday calling on the United States and the European Union to expand targeted sanctions against senior Democratic Republic of Congo officials implicated in serious rights abuses. The EU’s Foreign Affairs Council is due to discuss Congo on Monday.

Meanwhile, an opening ceremony was held on Thursday to mark the start of Catholic Church mediated talks between opposition political groups and members of the ruling coalition, providing a glimmer of hope that a negotiated solution could be found before the December 19 deadline, when President Joseph Kabila’s constitutionally mandated two-term limit ends. The talks were suspended until Tuesday, as discussions on participant lists continued today.

A key part of any agreement should include concrete steps to end the government-orchestrated crackdown on free expression and peaceful assembly. Government repression continued this week, as police in the eastern city of Bunia prevented a dozen members of the youth movement Filimbi from staging a sit-in on Wednesday morning. The activists wanted to deliver a letter calling on provincial deputies and other administrators to step down December 19.

Bunia’s mayor said he had prohibited the demonstration to comply with instructions given in a November 3 letter to all governors from Interior Minister Evariste Boshab, saying that Filimbi and the youth movement LUCHA are not legally registered groups so aren’t authorized to hold any activity. That runs counter to Congolese law, which does not require citizens to register their organization to hold a peaceful assembly.

Radio and television journalist Adel Uvon was released on Monday after she had been arrested with five LUCHA activists last week in Bunia. She was not charged. The LUCHA activists – Franck Bahati, Deogratias Kiza, Lombo Bahati, Celestin Tambwe, and Luc Malembe – were transferred to the central prison in Bunia on Wednesday after being charged with “incitement to disobedience,” a charge that appears politically motivated.

In Goma, military intelligence agents arrested LUCHA activist Justin Mutabesha on Thursday, soon after immigration officials confiscated a box of LUCHA T-shirts and detained the young man who had gone to Uganda to print and deliver them. According to the LUCHA activists, the T-shirts said “LUCHA – Lutte pour le Changement” (“Struggle for Change”) on the front and “#FreeLUCHA” on the back. Mutabesha remains in detention at the T2 military intelligence prison, without access to his lawyer, while the whereabouts of the young man who delivered the T-shirts are unknown.

Three other LUCHA activists arrested in Goma on October 24, after denouncing the “national dialogue” agreement remain in detention at the central prison: Jacques Muhindo, Fiston Dunia, and Glody Ntambwe.

In Bukavu, the crackdown on free assembly and the authorities’ apparent unease about all youth mobilization spread to student protests that began last Friday against a 25 percent hike in annual tuition fees at the Higher Pedagogical Institute that began last Friday. Security forces on Wednesday fired teargas to disperse scores of protesters, injuring at least two students and possibly others.