Touadéra Jails Five Activists for Denouncing the High Cost of Living

On October 15, police hauled five men off the streets of Bangui. Their crime? Calling for a "ville morte," the day when the capital grinds to a halt to tell those in power that the people can take no more. They were protesting rising fuel prices and a life that has become impossible for families who must choose between a sack of cassava and a litre of petrol for the morning taxi.

Today, Quentin Ngouando, coordinator of the I Gwé movement, Élysée Nguémalé of the Observatory for Democratic Governance in the Central African Republic, Steve Bendo, Barry Mardios and Igor Mokpem are still locked in the cells of the Roux camp. Nearly a month after their arrest, their lawyers are raising alarms about their deteriorating health. Men who did nothing but speak are falling ill behind bars. How long before the next piece of news is a tragedy?

Ask yourself what it says about a government that, faced with a population demanding bread and affordable fuel, answers with prison cells. A state that jails those who criticize prices does not have a communication problem. It has a legitimacy problem.

The facts are simple and damning. Before being transferred under a warrant to the military prison at the Roux camp, the detainees were held at the premises of the National Security Company, the CNS. Their lawyers described a lack of light, non-existent hygiene, and conditions that should not be imposed on an ordinary criminal suspect, let alone on citizens whose only alleged offence is the expression of an opinion. The Central African Constitution, like the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights that the Central African Republic has ratified, guarantees freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the right to a fair trial. These rights are not favours granted by a prince. They are obligations the state has signed.

And yet the reaction has been broad. Opposition leaders, human rights organizations and even figures close to the regime have demanded their release. When those who back the regime begin finding these arrests indefensible, the red line has been crossed. This convergence must be amplified, not smothered.

This tragedy belongs to a story we know all too well. For years, the Central African Republic has ranked among the poorest countries on earth, despite considerable resources in diamonds, gold, timber and farmland. While the wealth of the subsoil flows to foreign trading houses, Central Africans pay top price for fuel and watch their markets empty. When a society is so thoroughly deprived of economic prospects, protest is not a whim. It is a thermometer. And a regime cannot smash the thermometer to bring down the fever.

We must also look at who stands beside this power. Russian security forces, moved from Wagner to Africa Corps, have been stationed in Bangui since 2018 and provide protection for the president. We are not saying Moscow ordered these arrests. We are saying that those who guarantee the security of a regime that imprisons its critics bear responsibility for what they protect. Any partner claiming to bring stability must answer one simple question: stability for whom, and at whose benefit? The stability of a power that muzzles its people is not the stability of a country. It is the stability of a cell.

Western partners, for their part, love to speak of democracy in their communiqués. They fund projects, host conferences on good governance, then fall silent while activists die slowly in a cell in Bangui. We demand that they keep their own word. A democracy that does not protect those who defend it is not a democracy. And aid that conditions nothing on the release of prisoners of conscience is nothing more than a blank cheque signed for impunity.

So what is to be done? The answer is not passing outrage. It requires precise demands. First, the immediate and unconditional release of the five detainees, or at the very least their provisional release, with full access to their lawyers and independent doctors. Second, a public inquiry into the conditions of detention at the CNS and the Roux camp, with consequences for those responsible. Third, strict adherence to due process: a clear charge, an independent judge, a swift trial. Justice that drags its feet is justice that is already punishing.

The continent is not short of examples proving another path exists. Botswana built decades of stability on credible institutions, rigorous management of its resources and peaceful alternation of power. Mauritius made the rule of law and economic freedom the foundation of its prosperity. Senegal, despite its tensions, has shown that street protest and the ballot box can coexist without prison becoming the answer to every slogan. These countries are not perfect. But they demonstrate that a state that respects its citizens gains more than it loses.

Central African civil society has a role to play too. Bar associations, churches, consumer groups and trade unions must unite to document every arrest, every case of arbitrary detention, every decline in health behind bars. Solidarity is not a luxury. It is the first line of defence against arbitrary power.

But we must also speak to our own leaders, those who sit in Addis Ababa, at the Economic Community of Central African States and at the African Union. An organization that demands the return of constitutional order after a coup must also demand respect for public freedoms in normal times. Regional silence on prisoners of conscience is complicity.

Five men are locked up because they asked that the price of living come down. Five men whose health is collapsing while too many look away. We cannot accept this becoming routine. Free Quentin Ngouando, Élysée Nguémalé, Steve Bendo, Barry Mardios and Igor Mokpem. Open the prisons to those who have a lawyer and a doctor. Demand justice that judges rather than punishes. And remember this: a people that no longer has the right to say that life is expensive will eventually be unable to say anything at all.

Based on reporting by ACSS-EMAIL