{"id":146331,"date":"2023-05-03T06:34:11","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T04:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/central-africa\/dr-congo\/the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-reject-discriminatory-nationality-bill\/"},"modified":"2023-05-03T06:34:11","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T04:34:11","slug":"the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-reject-discriminatory-nationality-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/central-africa\/dr-congo\/the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-reject-discriminatory-nationality-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"The Democratic Republic of the Congo: Reject Discriminatory Nationality Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The\u00a0Democratic Republic of Congo<\/a>‘s parliament should reject a draft law that authorities could use to discriminate against Congolese citizens on the basis of their parents\u2019 national origin, Human Rights Watch said today.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The law would exclude from presidential office and senior institutional positions any Congolese with one parent of non-Congolese origin. Consideration of this bill during an election year heightens concerns that the authorities would use the law to prevent specific people from running for office, in violation of international legal protections on democratic participation and nondiscrimination. The legislation, known as the Tshiani or \u201cCongolity\u201d bill was\u00a0first introduced in 2021<\/a>\u00a0but was withdrawn after widespread objections. It is now placed on the agenda of the current ordinary session of the National Assembly, the Congolese\u2019s parliament lower chamber, which\u00a0may debate<\/a>\u00a0it during the three-month ordinary session that began in mid-March 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongo\u2019s authorities could easily use the proposed Tshiani law to unlawfully prevent Congolese citizens from running for political office,\u201d said\u00a0Carine Kaneza Nantulya<\/a>, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cBesides being discriminatory, passage of this law could herald new repression and violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill\u00a0is widely seen<\/a>\u00a0as an attempt to sideline\u00a0Mo\u00efse Katumbi<\/a>, who heads the opposition party Ensemble pour la R\u00e9publique (Together for the Republic) and is considered to be one of President Felix Tshisekedi\u2019s potential opponents in the presidential election scheduled for December 2023. Katumbi, a Congolese politician, businessman, and former governor of Katanga province whose father is\u00a0Greek,<\/a>\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0his candidacy for president in 2022.<\/p>\n

In 2016, the Congolese justice minister\u00a0opened an apparently politically<\/a>\u00a0motivated investigation against Katumbi. In 2018, the government of then-President Joseph Kabila\u00a0barred<\/a>\u00a0Katumbi from reentering the country to register his candidacy, effectively denying him his right to run for president. He returned in\u00a02019<\/a>\u00a0after the courts overturned his conviction as part of Tshisekedi\u2019s decision to set up confidence-building measures to reduce political tensions.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0number of foreign diplomats, United Nations officials, Congolese organizations<\/a>, and prominent individuals\u00a0have spoken out<\/a>\u00a0against the proposed law. There have also been demonstrations across the country, including in the eastern provinces of\u00a0North-Kivu<\/a>,\u00a0Ituri<\/a>, and\u00a0Katanga<\/a>, and the western provinces of\u00a0Kongo-Central<\/a>, as well as in\u00a0Kinshasa<\/a>, the capital, to oppose the bill.<\/p>\n

In an April 5 statement,\u00a0the organization Voix des Sans Voix<\/a>\u00a0(Voice of the Voiceless) said the proposed law would be used to exclude certain people from political competition and that the parliament should reject it to \u201cavoid political tensions that could lead to human rights violations.\u201d The\u00a0Association Congolaise pour l\u2019Acc\u00e8s \u00e0 la Justice<\/a>\u00a0(Congolese Association for Access to Justice) said the law \u201crisks generating frustration and possible violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his April 8 Easter message, Kinshasa\u2019s archbishop,\u00a0Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo<\/a>, said that \u201ca draft Congolity bill, on the eve of the elections, divides us more than it unites us. We urgently need gestures and laws that bring us together, rather than acts and provisions that set us against each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

A delegation of ambassadors<\/a>, members of the European Union, met with the president of the National Assembly to express their concern about the proposed law.<\/p>\n

Bintou Keita, head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, in her address to the UN Human Rights Council in March,\u00a0expressed<\/a>\u00a0concern \u201cabout the rise in political discourse of xenophobic and racist messages that constitute a danger to national cohesion, peace, and security.\u201d She called for an inclusive electoral process and said that no Congolese should be excluded on the basis of their origin, that of their parents, or their spouse.<\/p>\n

In January, two government ministers\u00a0made<\/a>\u00a0speeches in an apparent political mobilization\u00a0video<\/a>\u00a0that played into the biases reflected in the draft law. In a clip that went viral on social networks, Hydrocarbons Minister Didier Budimbu said that Congolese should not vote for a candidate whose father and mother are unknown, referring to Katumbi as a \u201cbat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Foreign Trade Minister Jean-Lucien Bussa\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0that anyone born of a foreign father should be considered the \u201cenemy of the Congolese.\u201d Tshisekedi\u00a0condemned<\/a>\u00a0Bussa\u2019s statement but has yet to comment publicly on the proposed nationality law after its reintroduction before the national assembly.<\/p>\n

Such statements by government officials, given Congo\u2019s painful\u00a0colonial history<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0cycle of abuses and internal conflicts<\/a>, foster an atmosphere that encourages institutional discrimination. Government officials have a duty to refrain from speech advocating violence, discrimination, or hostility toward any individual or social group, particularly if that speech is used to carry out discriminatory official policy, Human Rights Watch said.<\/p>\n

Under both the\u00a0International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights<\/a>\u00a0(ICCPR) and the\u00a0International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination<\/a>, treaties to which Congo is a party, everyone is guaranteed equal and effective protection against discrimination based on descent or national or ethnic origin, or other status.\u202f\u202fArticle 25 of the ICCPR provides that \u201c[e]very citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any of the [discriminatory] distinctions \u2026 and without unreasonable restrictions: \u2026 To take part in the conduct of public affairs \u2026 and to be elected at genuine periodic elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery Congolese citizen should be able to stand for election without discrimination and fear of intimidation on the basis of their ethnicity or their parent\u2019s nationality,\u201d Kaneza Nantulya said. \u201cThe Congolese authorities should take their commitment to democracy and human rights seriously and, as they did in 2021, reject any exclusionary notion of Congolese identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Human Rights Watch (HRW).<\/i><\/p>\n