(New York) - Human Rights Watch today called on authorities of the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie-Goma (RCD-Goma) and their Rwandan allies to reveal the whereabouts of four Congolese who disappeared after their arrest in Bukavu on August 29. The four were transferred from Bukavu to Goma, another town under RCD control and have not been seen since.
On August 26, seven persons were killed and at least forty-three injured when a grenade was thrown into a crowd at a religious fair in Goma. Authorities reportedly accused the disappeared activists of having passed information about the attack to the international press.
Three of those arrested, Paulin Bapolisi Bahuga, Gervais Chirhalwirhwa Nkunzimwami, and Aloys Muzalia Wakyebwa, taught at the Institut de Pédagogie, and the fourth, Régine Mutijima Bazalake was locally known as civil society activist. All four had reportedly been harassed by local authorities after they were named to a national assembly by Laurent Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. D.R.Congo is currently at war with Rwanda and the RCD-Goma. The four had not taken their seats in the assembly.
Students at the Institut de Pédagogie protested the arrest of the teachers on August 30. At least three students and perhaps as many as thirteen were injured when police fired into the air to halt the stone-throwing demonstrators.
The four who were arrested have not been found at the usual lockups in Goma and may have been sent to Kisangani or Kalemie, or to Rwanda.
