Floribert Chebeya Bahizire (13 September 1963 – 2 June 2010) was a leading Congolese human rights activist in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

, hailed by the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

as "a champion of human rights". His death led to calls for an investigation from more than 50 organisations, including

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

and

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

, many countries and several senior UN officials, including

Ban Ki-moon Ban Ki-moon (; ; born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was his country's Minister ...

Navi Pillay Navanethem "Navi" Pillay (born 23 September 1941) is a South African jurist who served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. A South African of Indian Tamil origin, she was the first non-white woman judge of ...

Alan Doss Alan Claude Doss is a British international civil service, civil servant who has spent his entire professional life in the service of the United Nations, working on peacekeeping, development and humanitarian assignments in Africa, Asia and Eur ...

and

Philip Alston Philip Geoffrey Alston is an Australian international law scholar and human rights practitioner. He is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, and co-chair of the law school's Center for Human Rights and Globa ...

Career

Bahizire was born in

Bukavu Bukavu is a city in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), lying at the extreme south-western edge of Lake Kivu, west of Cyangugu in Rwanda, and separated from it by the outlet of the Ruzizi River. It is the capital of the South Kivu pr ...

. He worked from the early 1990s until his sudden suspicious death in 2010, the cause of which has yet to be established. He was the leader of the Voix des Sans Voix (Voice of the Voiceless) human rights organisation. His work led to him being issued with repetitive threats from the police. Throughout his life Chebeya denounced several governments and rulers, including the dictator

Mobutu Sese Seko Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997) was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the president of Zaire from 1965 to 1997 (known as the Democratic Republic o ...

, his successor President

Laurent-Désiré Kabila Laurent-Désiré Kabila () (27 November 1939 – 18 January 2001) or simply Laurent Kabila ( US: ), was a Congolese revolutionary and politician who was the third President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1997 until his assassinati ...

and the incumbent government at the time of his death. At the time of his death Chebeya had campaigned against King

Albert II of Belgium , house = Belgium , father = Leopold III of Belgium , mother = Astrid of Sweden , birth_date = , birth_place = Stuyvenberg Castle, Laeken, Brussels, Belgium , death_date = , death_place = , signature = Albert II of Belgium Signat ...

taking part in the celebrations of DRC's 50th anniversary, had organized a protest about the removal of Vital Kamerhee, had finalized a complaint against those responsible for the Bas-Congo

Bundu dia Kongo Bundu dia Kongo (Kikongo; "Gathering of Kongo"), known as BDK, is a new religious movement with a political and cultural agenda that is associated with the Kongo ethnic group. It was founded in June 1969 but officially in 1986 by Ne Muanda Nse ...

massacre to be filed with the International Penal Court, was criticizing the government delays in setting up the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) and was investigating the death of Aimée Kabila, who claimed to be the president's sister.

Death

Chebeya had been asked to meet with Congo's Inspector General of Police, the national police chief, General

John Numbi John Numbi (born 1962) was a Congolese security officer and retainer of Joseph Kabila, who rose to the rank of General. Until January 2010, he was the Inspector General of the Congolese National Police. In 2018 he was appointed as the Inspector Ge ...

, on 1 June 2010. It is unknown if this meeting occurred. Chebeya texted his wife to inform her he had arrived at police HQ at

Kinshasa Kinshasa (; ; ln, Kinsásá), formerly Léopoldville ( nl, Leopoldstad), is the capital and largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Once a site of fishing and trading villages situated along the Congo River, Kinshasa is now one o ...

for the meeting but that was the last contact he had with the outside world. He was later found dead by passers-by in the backseat of his car in a suburb of

, with some clothing removed. Chebeya's driver had disappeared. Female hair and condoms were discovered alongside him in the car. His trousers were unzipped. No blood or bullet holes were found. However, Chebeya had blood in several orifices.

Reactions to death

Congolese response

Congolese Interior Minister Adolphe Lumanu ordered authorities to investigate this incident and condolenced with Chebeya's family. Chief of police in Kinshasa, General Jean De Dieu Oleko, said police would investigate the circumstances. Voice of the Voiceless's Dolly Ibefo asked for an independent

autopsy An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any di ...

. On 6 June, the Congolese head of police was suspended and three police officers were arrested. Interior Minister Adolphe Lumanu said in a statement read out on television that President

Joseph Kabila Joseph Kabila Kabange ( , ; born 4 June 1971) is a Congolese politician who served as President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between January 2001 and January 2019. He took office ten days after the assassination of his father, Presi ...

was "determined that all light be shed" and "To allow the enquiry to be conducted smoothly, the national defence council decided as a precaution to suspend inspector general John Numbi".

International response

's deputy Africa director, Veronique Aubert, issued a statement upon hearing of his death: "We are stunned and appalled by the suspicious death of such a prominent and respected human rights defender". Amnesty would like his death to be investigated. *Several representatives of the UN responded. **The

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, commonly known as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) or the United Nations Human Rights Office, is a department of the Secretariat of the United Nati ...

, paid tribute: "For more than 20 years, Chebeya Bahizire had survived many death threats, arrests, and ill-treatment due to his work as a human rights defender. He believed in the cause of human rights and was not afraid to pursue it against all odds". **UN investigator for extrajudicial executions

suggested "official responsibility" during a speech he delivered to the

United Nations Human Rights Council The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), CDH is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. ...

in Geneva. **UN mission head in Congo

is reported to have said: "The Special Representative calls for the authorities to initiate a prompt investigation so that full light can be shed on this death". **UN Secretary-General,

soon requested an independent investigation into Chebeya's death and promised to help in any way he could. *The

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

called for an independent investigation into Chebeya's death. **Congolese authorities said they would permit Dutch experts to assist with the autopsy on Chebeya's body. **The UK's African minister

Henry Bellingham Henry Campbell Bellingham, Baron Bellingham, (born 29 March 1955) is a British Conservative politician who sits in the House of Lords and former barrister. He was first elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for North West Norfolk in 1983. ...

asked for "a full and transparent investigation". Kikaya Bin Karubi, the Congolese ambassador to the UK, told the BBC on 9 June that a group called Les Resistants Combattants had claimed responsibility for an arson attack on his London home, which destroyed several vehicles and damaged his house, and that it was an act of retaliation for Chebeya's death. *Organisations in the Republic of the Congo called for an independent investigation into Chebeya's death. *The United States called for an independent investigation into Chebeya's death. *The Belgian director

Thierry Michel Thierry Michel (born 13 October 1952) is a Belgian film director, mostly making social and political documentaries. His office and company ''Les films de la passerelle'' is located in Liège, where he works with the producer Christine Pireaux. O ...

made the documentary ''

L'affaire Chebeya ''L'Affaire Chebeya (un crime d'Etat ?)'' is a documentary directed by Thierry Michel that was released in February 2012. The award-winning film explores the assassination of a human rights activist in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) ...

'' covering the trial and events leading up to it, winning the Grand Prize at the International Film Festival of Human Rights in Paris in March 2012.

Autopsy

An independent autopsy returned an "inconclusive" result.

Convictions

In June 2011, four policemen were

sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

and another was sentenced to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

after being convicted by a military court of planning and carrying out Chebeya's assassination. Three of the former were absent from court during sentencing - these were believed to have carried out the actual assassination. Three other policemen were acquitted of any part in Chebeya's assassination. Many hours were spent reading out the verdict, with hundreds of people turning up to hear it. Paul Mwilambwe, who was in charge of security for the premises where Chebeya was killed in June 2010, said he saw the activist's assassination on a surveillance camera. He accused Joseph Kabila of personally ordering the assassination.Kabila ordered activist murder: fugitive cop
''IOL'' On September 22, 2021, the appeal trial of two members of the squad that killed the human rights defender and his driver begins.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chebeya, Floribert 1963 births 2010 deaths Democratic Republic of the Congo human rights activists Democratic Republic of the Congo democracy activists Assassinated activists People from Bukavu People murdered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 2010 murders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 21st-century Democratic Republic of the Congo people