Login to BlackFacts.com using your favorite Social Media Login. Click the appropriate button below and you will be redirected to your Social Media Website for confirmation and then back to Blackfacts.com once successful.
Enter the email address and password you used to join BlackFacts.com. If you cannot remember your login information, click the “Forgot Password” link to reset your password.
On Sunday, demonstrators in Lagos expressed their thoughts on an early request made by Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to halt the weeks-long protests in the country against economic challenges.
He replaces Debretsion Gebremichael, whose immunity from prosecution was removed Thursday.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International said Thursday that scores of civilians were killed in a \"massacre\" in the Tigray region, that witnesses blamed on forces backing the local ruling party.
The \"massacre\" is the first reported incident of large-scale civilian fatalities in a week-old conflict between the regional ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize.
\"Amnesty International can today confirm... that scores, and likely hundreds, of people were stabbed or hacked to death in Mai-Kadra (May Cadera) town in the southwest of Ethiopia's Tigray Region on the night of 9 November,\" the rights group said in a report.
Amnesty said it had \"digitally verified gruesome photographs and videos of bodies strewn across the town or being carried away on stretchers.\"
The dead \"had gaping wounds that appear to have been inflicted by sharp weapons such as knives and machetes,\" Amnesty said, citing witness accounts.
Witnesses said the attack was carried out by TPLF-aligned forces after a defeat at the hands of the Ethiopian military, though Amnesty said it \"has not been able to confirm who was responsible for the killings\".
It nonetheless called on TPLF commanders and officials to \"make clear to their forces and their supporters that deliberate attacks on civilians are absolutely prohibited and constitute war crimes\".
Abiy ordered military operations in Tigray on November 4, saying they were prompted by a TPLF attack on federal military camps -- a claim the party denies.
The region has been under a communications blackout ever since, making it difficult to verify competing claims on the ground.
Abiy said Thursday his army had made major gains in western Tigray.
Thousands of Ethiopians have fled across the border into neighboring Sudan, and the UN is sounding the alarm about a humanitarian crisis in Tigray.
[Citizen] Dar es Salaam -- The African rights court on Wednesday ordered Tanzania to amend a section of its constitution which bars any court from probing the election of a president after a winner is officially announced.
BY LORRAINE MUROMO/SILAS NKALA At the weekend, Vice-President and Health minister Constantino Chiwenga announced tightened lockdown measures that started yesterday aimed at controlling the spiralling cases of COVID-19. As of January 3, the country had recorded TRADE unions have blasted government’s decision to impose a 30-day stringent COVID-19 lockdown without consulting key stakeholders such as informal traders. 15 265 total confirmed cases, with 11 574 recoveries, 3 311 active cases and 380 deaths. The measures include immediate closure of some formal and informal businesses across the country except those providing essential services, a dust-to-dawn curfew, and suspension of intercity travel, cross-border trading, among others. In an interview with NewsDay, workers and cross-border traders’ representatives said government should have consulted key economic stakeholders before imposing the travel and trading ban. Cross Border Traders Association president Killer Zivhu said informal traders were the worst affected as they had not yet recovered from the previous lockdown regimes. “Considering the economic challenges at this juncture where it is January and we are looking at the opening of schools soon where there is need for fees and rentals, the move was a total disaster,” Zivhu said. “At some point, it’s a win-win situation. The pandemic is very dangerous, it would be a bad situation to gain business and lose lives and at the same time losing business can lead to death and poverty,” said Zivhu. He added: “What we are pleading with authorities that those with authentic COVID-19 certificates should be allowed to pass and on their way back, provide the same proof.” Zivhu said it was necessary to allow cross border traders to carry on with their operations instead of confining them to their homes without providing alternative sources of income. Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions secretary-general Japhet Moyo said as a union, they did not agree with the way government was dealing with the situation. “What the authorities are doing is wrong, we understand that the pandemic is surging but what they are prescribing is not the solution. The people caged in their homes will die of hunger,” Moyo said. “We don’t agree with that at all, people are dying because at the moment they are not able to do basic economic activities, therefore, do not have money to even purchase medication. For example, cross-border traders are going to starve.” The International Coalition Against Coronavirus for Africa Development (ICAC-AD) also warned government that level four lockdown would cripple the country’s economy. In an interview yesterday, South Africa-based ICAC-AD vice-president Chandangwinyira Chose said: “We are against any lockdowns now, but the government should enforce the wearing of masks. The people are struggling with this lockdown which is making them poorer as they fail to do their vending where they get income from.” ICAC said it was also lobbying all African government to develop home-grown remedies to COVID-19 to avoid instanc
Democratic Republic of Congo: President Tshisekedi reneges on justice pledge, leaving victims in despair
\tPresident Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo has reneged on his inauguration pledges to strengthen the rule of law, fight impunity and ensure justice, leaving the families of hundreds of people killed during the country’s pre-election crisis in despair, Amnesty International said today.
“President Tshisekedi and his government must acknowledge the pain that victims and their families have been enduring and publicly commit to promptly and effectively prosecute those responsible,” said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s Director for East and Southern Africa.
Victims of 2015-2018 brutal crackdowns denied justice in the DRC, Amnesty International interviewed 115 survivors and victims’ family members, on their quest for justice.
Farcical investigations
\tUnder international pressure, former President Joseph Kabila constituted three committees to investigate the deadly crackdowns on protestors, none of which have resulted in any prosecutions.
A second committee created in February 2018 investigated the use of deadly force against protestors on 31 December 2017 and 21 January 2018, recommending prosecution of security officers who ordered or used excessive force against protestors.
Guinean President Alpha Conde met with supporters in the country's capital on Friday, during the last rally ahead of Sunday's presidential election.
Conde, 82, is seeking a third term in office, insisting his attempt to prolong his rule does not make him a dictator, even as opposition protesters slam his candidacy as an illegal power grab.
Speaking to supporters in Conakry, Conde vowed to \"focus on the social conditions of Guineans\" if he were re-elected in the weekend's poll.
The electoral campaign has already seen deadly protests and many fear an increase in violence after the results are announced.
More than 50 people have been killed in anti-Conde protests since October last year, Amnesty International said this month, urging the government to investigate.
Conde made history in 2010 when he became Guinea's first democratically elected president since independence from France in 1958, raising hopes that the country could finally emerge from a long history of corrupt rule.
Sunday's vote is also the third match-up between Conde and his long-time rival Cellou Dalein Diallo, whom he defeated in 2010 and 2015.
The president maintains his candidacy for a third term is legal because the constitutional changes were approved by voters in a referendum earlier this year.
Diallo, the opposition candidate, is urging the international community to monitor Sunday's vote, accusing the government of rigging the electoral lists.
Shops were shuttered and streets empty as Nigeria's largest city Lagos was locked down under curfew after unrest flared following the shooting of protesters.
After more than forty-eight hours of arrest and several hours of interrogation, opposition leaders Brigitte Kafui Adjamagbo-Johnson and Gérard Dodji Djossou are still in police custody at the Central Intelligence and Criminal Investigation Unit.
They are charged with criminal conspiracy and breach of internal state security. Africanews, correspondent took a look to the story.
A day after the arrest of the two leaders of the Dynamique Monseigneur Kpodzro, the only official statement we were able to obtain was from the public prosecutor, who spoke of an investigation that was opened, concerning an allegged plan to destabilise the institutions of the Republic. Brigitte Kafui Adjamagbo-Johnson is accused of being in possession of some documents relating to the alleged plan to destabilize the country. According to the prosecutor's statement, she was previously the subject of \"legal proceedings relating to similar facts and placed under judicial supervision\".
A move deemed unjustified, disguised as criminal proceeding, according to Their lawyer, Darius Atsoo deemed the move unjustified, disguised as criminal proceedings
\"The Togolese judiciary has very often prosecuted politically committed Togolese citizens for alleged criminal plans aimed at destabilizing the country.
In 2013, for example, leaders, activists and followers of the ''Sauvons le Togo'' group were arrested and imprisoned in connection with the burning of the markets of Kara in the north of the country and Lomé.\" Serge Koffi futher stressed.
After more than five (5) years of detention, some were released in 2018 without any light having been shed on the circumstances of this case.
This arrest of the two opponents seems, according to Amnesty International, to be strictly linked to the call for demonstration and appears to be a further illustration of the authorities' desire to silence the opposition and dissident voices.
Amnesty International, says the arrest of the two opposition leaders, appears to to be attempt by the authorities to silence the opposition and dissident voices.
[Premium Times] \"Because of the current security and economic challenges, our country Nigeria needs the prayers of every patriot.\"
