Local and international organizations also charged that members of the Imbonerakure were responsible for some. The UN COI also documented the disappearance of Oscar Ntasano, a hotel owner and member of the CNDD-FDD. The UN-COI cited members of the SNR, Imbonerakure, police and to a lesser extent the Burundian National Defence.
The government allowed visits at the request of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the CNIDH. In its response to the UN COI report, the government admitted that “certain elements of the security forces have overstepped the framework of their security forces. The UN COI and NGOs documented cases of torture allegedly committed by members of the SNR, BNDF and the police.
Respect for Civil Liberties, Including
These restrictions continued and were applied to press outlets critical of the government or the human rights situation in the country. Some journalists, lawyers, NGO staff and leaders of political parties and civil society alleged that the government used the law to intimidate and harass them. These three stations were closed by the government in 2015 after unidentified men destroyed them.
After the failed coup in May 2015, the government invoked the law to intimidate and detain journalists. Several media outlets claimed they received explicit threats that they would be shut down if they published or broadcast stories critical of the government. The government detained or summoned for questioning several local and international journalists investigating topics such as human rights violations, corruption or refugees fleeing the country.
The constitution and law provide for freedom of peaceful assembly, but the government has severely restricted this right (see section 1.d.). The constitution provides for freedom of association within the limits of the law, but the government has severely curtailed this right. In October 2016, the government permanently banned five CSOs it said were part of the political opposition.
The constitution and law guarantee freedom of internal movement, travel abroad, emigration and repatriation, but the government has severely limited these rights. Access to asylum: The law provides for the granting of asylum or refugee status, and the government has a system to provide protection to refugees.
Freedom to Participate in the Political Process
The government signed the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, but made a reservation on the employment of refugees, meaning that Burundian nationals had preferred access to employment to refugees. According to UNHCR, in October 2016 there were an estimated 974 persons living at risk of statelessness. Most of those still at risk of becoming stateless had turned down an offer of Burundian citizenship from the government if they could not get Omani.
Recent elections: During 2015 the government held four separate elections, including for municipal councils and the National Assembly (June), the president (July), the Senate (July) and village councils (August). During the year the government launched a campaign to generate citizen contributions to an election fund, with the aim of financing the future within the country. In December, the government issued a decree formalizing the campaign, according to which the sums would be automatically deducted from the salaries of civil servants.
Political Parties and Political Participation: By law, to qualify for public campaign financing and to compete in legislative and presidential elections, parties had to be "nationally based" (ethnically and regionally diverse) and demonstrate in writing that they were organized and had membership. in all provinces. Other parties, such as the Union for Peace and Development, were recognized by the Ministry of the Interior, but were still unable to act due to intimidation and repression by the government. The government stated that the law allows only legally constituted political parties, coalitions of political parties and independent candidates to run for office and that unknown party leaders and political actors not affiliated with a party cannot play any role in the process political.
This attitude effectively devalued parties that were not recognized by the government and prevented their leaders from developing platforms and. The constitution reserves 30 percent of positions in the National Assembly, the Senate, and the Council of Ministers for women, and government institutions hired people after elections to meet gender as well as ethnic quota requirements.
Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government
The law allocates three seats in each chamber of parliament for the Twa ethnic group, which makes up about 1 percent of the population. By law, the president, two vice presidents and ministers are required to disclose assets upon taking office, but the non-public nature of the disclosure means that compliance with this provision could not be confirmed.
Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human Rights
All four were human rights activists accused of participating in banned civil society organizations. The UN Human Rights Council established a three-member UN COI in 2016 to investigate human rights violations since 2015. The commission submitted its final report in September, finding that there were grounds to believe that serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity had been committed in the country.
Government officials, including the Minister of Human Rights and Social Affairs, dismissed the report as not credible and accused the committee members of serving foreign interests to undermine the country's sovereignty. In September, the Human Rights Council voted to extend the commission's mandate by one year, and requested the OHCHR to send a team of three experts to Burundi. In July 2016, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2303, expressing serious concerns about human rights violations and welcoming the government's open cooperation in the deployment of United Nations and AU human rights monitors.
In February 2016, the AU announced that it would send 100 human rights monitors and 100 military observers to the country and stated that the president supported the deployment. Governmental human rights bodies: Parties to the 2000 Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement committed to the establishment of a. Since the beginning of its operation in 2016, the KTR has continued to gather evidence and carry out information activities under its mandate to investigate and establish the truth about serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed by 1962 in the country.
In November 2016, the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutes downgraded CNIDH's accreditation due to concerns about its independence. The CNIDH, which also monitored the government's progress with human rights investigations, did not always make its findings public.
Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons
KRT commissioners were perceived by some CSOs as representing the interests of the ruling party and therefore not impartial. As of late August, the TRC had employed six researchers and limited its initial investigations to three provinces (Karuzi, Mwaro and Ngozi). On September 8, TRC president Jean-Louis Nahimana announced the initial results of investigations in Karuzi and Mwaro, including the discovery of mass graves dating back to the TRC's tenure.
The government did not enforce the law uniformly, and rape and other domestic and sexual violence continued to be serious problems. In September 2016, the government passed a law allowing for the establishment of a special gender-based crime court, making gender-based violence crimes. The campaign continued throughout the year and intensified as the government set a target of no children or adults living on the streets by the end of the year.
The constitution prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities, but the government has not promoted or protected the rights of persons with disabilities. The Twa, the country's original hunter-gatherer inhabitants, numbered an estimated 80,000 people, or about 1 percent of the population, according to the OHCHR. The constitution provides for three appointed seats for Twa in each of the parliament buildings, and Twa parliamentarians (including one woman) took their seats in August 2015.
Article 567 of the Penal Code punishes voluntary same-sex sexual relations by adults with up to two years in prison. However, there have been cases of harassment, intimidation, arbitrary arrests and demands for bribes by police officers and members.
Worker Rights
According to the president of the Albino Women's Hope Association, society did not accept people with albinism, and they were often unemployed and isolated. In the wake of union members' participation in anti-government demonstrations in 2015, unions were subjected to similar pressures and restrictions as other elements of civil society. Most workers worked in the unregulated informal economy and were not protected by laws other than the minimum wage.
Children and young adults were forced into forced labor on plantations or small farms in the south, small-scale work in mines, carrying river stones for construction in Bujumbura, or engaging in informal trade on the streets of larger cities (see section 7. c.). The law prohibits children from working at night and limits them to 40 hours of work per week. During the year, authorities did not report, nor perform, any cases of child labor in the formal sector.
Many children worked in the informal sector, such as in family businesses, selling on the street and working in small local brickworks. See also the Department of Labor's Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor at www.dol.gov/ilab/reports/child-labor/findings. Much of the country's economic activity took place in the informal sector, where protection was generally not provided.
Members of the Twa ethnic minority, who in many cases lacked official documentation, were often excluded from opportunities in the formal economy. According to the government, 62 percent of the population lived below the poverty line, defined by the World Bank as the equivalent of $0.50 per day in urban areas and $0.38 per day in rural areas.
