The Chadians baptized it “Black Thursday”, as the demonstrations of civil society, Thursday, October 20, had been brutally repressed by the police. The population had risen up against the two-year extension of the transitional regime led by General Mahamat Déby, even though the young head of state, who succeeded his father at the head of a military junta in April 2021 , pledged to hold elections after an eighteen-month transition.
According to experts mandated by the United Nations Committee against Torture, the results of October 20 are particularly heavy: between 50 and 150 people were killed, more than 150 people disappeared and 600 to 1,100 people were deported to the Koro Toro high security prison, in the middle of the desert, 600 km northeast of the capital. A “bloody repression”according to the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Chadian Moussa Faki.
401 demonstrators judged “outside the competent jurisdiction”
Three weeks after the events, the Ministry of Justice ended up recognizing the arrest and imprisonment of 621 people, including 82 minors. The N’Djamena prosecutor’s office announced the opening on Tuesday, November 29 of the trial, which will last until Sunday, of 401 people among the detainees, the investigation to continue for the others. The public prosecutor told AFP that the people were being tried for several offenses, including «unauthorized assembly,«destruction of property » et “public disorder”.
The hearings will take place within the Koro Toro detention center. The Chadian Bar denounces “unlawful trial” : “The incriminated persons are detained outside the competent jurisdiction, that of N’Djamena, and the holding of hearings in Koro Toro does not allow them to benefit from the assistance of a lawyer”, indicates Me Koulmen Nadjiro, secretary of the bar association of Chad.
The regime wants to keep control of the international commission of inquiry
One of the main opponents of the regime, Succès Masra, leader of the opposition party Les Transformateurs, asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the beginning of November to open an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed during the repression of the demonstrations of October 20. For the moment, the ICC has not followed up, but the Chadian government has taken the lead by accepting the principle of an international investigation for «shed light on what happened on October 20,” according to close advisers to President Déby.
The commission of inquiry, which is struggling to set up, should be made up of representatives of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the African Union and the UN. The international community is pushing for this body to be totally independent. But the presidency seems to want to keep control of the case, which targets the units of the DGSEE, the Chadian presidential guard, and is delaying the implementation of the investigation.
Repression continues, say human rights organizations
Human rights organizations, including the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Amnesty International, are calling on the Chadian government to «put an end to the ongoing repression of opponents”. The power has so far recognized only fifty people killed by bullets and about 300 injured during the day of October 20. But the opposition and NGOs believe that the victims are much more numerous. FIDH, in an investigation still in progress, announced that it had already counted 145 dead.