Civil society organization Words and Actions officers, judicial and sometimes prison staff for the Awakening of Consciences and the were also responsible for cases of arbitrary Evolution of Mentalities (PARCEM) was detention. permitted to reopen in April, after being ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES suspended for nearly two years. New cases of enforced disappearances were WOMEN’S RIGHTS reported, including that of Elie Ngomirakiza, Burundian authorities continued to fail to a CNL representative from Bujumbura Rural respect and protect women’s human rights. A province, who was detained in July. Cases woman who was missing for three months from previous years remained unresolved after leaving her husband was accused of and there were more than 250 open cases “family abandonment”, an offence before the UN Working Group on Enforced punishable by up to two months in prison. and Involuntary Disappearances. Despite Before going to the police, she had been in this, the national authorities sought to hiding at a safe house run by a women’s minimize the issue. In July, the president told rights organization, which was in turn media that there had been no accused of threatening state security. disappearances and referred instead to RIGHT TO PRIVACY criminals who fled to Rwanda. Later that month, the Prosecutor General of the An evening curfew was imposed in Gishubi Republic underplayed reports of enforced commune in Gitega province to prevent disappearances, referring instead to people social mixing between men and women, who left to join armed groups without continuing a trend observed in other parts of informing their families, and criminal groups the country in recent years. New rules were that carried out abductions disguised as introduced whereby a woman found in a bar security forces. after 7pm with a married man, not her RIGHT TO LIFE husband, would be fined BIF10,000 (US$5), as would a girl found outside her family home Dead bodies, often bearing signs of violence, at that time. Men caught with women who were regularly found near roads, lakes, were not their wives would be fined ditches and other public places. The human BIF20,000 (US$10) and the same fine would rights organization Ligue Iteka reported that be imposed on boys found with girls after 269 bodies were discovered between January 7pm. and December; however, investigations were In September, the minister of interior rarely conducted before burials. ordered the suspension of all administrative The police, National Intelligence Service officials who were practising and members of the ruling party’s youth “concubinage” (defined by law as a married wing, the Imbonerakure, were accused of man living with one or more women as killing suspected opponents, including though they were “wives” outside or within through torture. the marital home) or were part of “illegal RIGHT TO TRUTH, JUSTICE AND unions”. The bans on cohabitation outside REPARATION marriage and on polygamy continued. ARBITRARY ARRESTS AND DETENTIONS The TRC continued to conduct exhumations of mass graves of victims of the 1972 Arbitrary arrests and detention continued, massacres, which primarily targeted Hutu. notably of members of the opposition party, Focusing on the 1972 massacres without the National Congress for Freedom (CNL). In investigating other atrocities, the TRC faced September, the Commission of Inquiry on accusations of bias and of working on behalf Burundi published a report which found that of the ruling party. Separately, between April in addition to police and intelligence service and June, the senate organized a series of Amnesty International Report 2021/22 110