Congolese authorities arrested at least 128 people in nine cities across the country today as youth movements and opposition parties called for nationwide demonstrations to protest the announcement that elections will not be held this year.

An agreement to hold a vote before the end of December was the key commitment in the Catholic Church-mediated agreement signed on New Year’s Eve 2016, after President Joseph Kabila failed to step down at the end of his constitutionally mandated two-term limit.

Prominent human rights activist and president of the nongovernmental organization Justicia, Timothée Mbuya, was arrested in Lubumbashi on July 31, 2017. © 2017 Private

According to witnesses, security forces arrested at least 57 people today in Goma, 24 in Kinshasa, 10 in Butembo, eight in Beni, eight in Lubumbashi, seven in Mbandaka, five in Kasindi, five in Bukavu, and four in Kindu. Among those arrested were Timothée Mbuya, human rights activist and president of the nongovernmental organization Justicia, as well as members of the youth movement Struggle for Change (LUCHA), journalists, and other peaceful protesters. At least 22 of those arrested have been released.

In Goma, authorities arrested several groups of LUCHA activists at different locations as they were trying to enter the provincial office of the electoral commission to hand over their official complaint. Five of them were granted a meeting with the executive secretary, only to be arrested by intelligence officers upon leaving the office, according to fellow activists.

Authorities used tear gas in Butembo, Goma, and Bukavu to crack down on the peaceful protesters. In Bukavu, security forces fired live bullets and wounded several protesters, witnesses said. Authorities also dispersed protesters in Kisangani. In the cities of Mbuji-Mayi and Kananga in central Congo, the combination of recent arrests, threats, and the deployment of security forces led activists to cancel planned protests.

A total of 13 journalists in Goma, Bukavu, Lubumbashi, and Kinshasa were interrogated, temporarily detained and/or had their material confiscated, according to witnesses, in what has become a very worrying pattern of repression levelled against independent observers in Congo. “The intelligence officers asked me to come with them to their office. They took my camera, saying they will erase my images,” a journalist in Goma told Human Rights Watch. The journalist eventually got her camera back, but the photographs had been deleted.

The coalition of youth movements and human rights organizations that called for the protests—known as the Collective of Civil Society Actions (CASC)—said the protests were meant to show that the “patience of the Congolese people has reached its limit” and that the “misery overwhelming…the population” will only be resolved by the “organization of elections planned for December 2017 and the change in leadership the people are waiting for.”

Youth movements and opposition parties in Congo called for nationwide demonstrations on July 31, 2017, to protest the announcement by the electoral commission’s president that elections will not be held before the end of December 2017. © 2017 Private

Congo’s main opposition leaders backed the protests, as did the country’s conference of Catholic bishops, whose secretary general said earlier this month that “only a popular uprising can bring change to Congo.”

Congo’s trade unions have also started to mobilize. On July 21, the collective of public administration trade unions called for an immediate and general strike for all state employees across the country. This was in response to the massive depreciation of the Congolese franc in recent months; state employees are losing out on almost half of their salaries, given that they’re still paid 930 Congolese francs per US dollar, even though the dollar is now valued at around 1700 Congolese francs, according to union representatives. The president of the trade union’s collective later called off the strike when the government agreed to start paying public employees 1425 francs to the dollar, starting in August. But the president of the collective told us the strike will go forward if this commitment isn’t respected.

Three trade unions representing doctors and nurses have gone ahead with the strike though, with their members only carrying out a “minimum service” at hospitals and health centers across the country.

With frustrations already so high across such a broad spectrum of the Congolese population, it’s likely that tensions will only escalate unless there’s a clear sign of political will for President Kabila to step down by the end of the year and allow for a peaceful, democratic transition.