UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk delivered a speech on Tuesday condemning the state of prison and detention systems in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In his address, directed at the DRC president, Türk discusses the deterioration of detention conditions in the country. Notably, he highlights that crimes are being perpetrated within the prisons, such as torture and sexual abuse. Specific details of the prison conditions are confirmed by Amnesty International which reported that:

Conditions of detention remained appalling and so overcrowded that some prisons held 2,000% over their intended capacity. Inmates suffer… a lack of drinking water and medicines, and some starve… to death. Makala Prison in Kinshasa, with a capacity for 1,500 people, held over 12,000 inmates as of October [2023], over 70% of whom were pretrial detainees. Goma Central Prison, with a capacity for 300 people, housed over 7,000 inmates, 80% of whom were in pretrial detention.

In both his speech this week and a previous address during his first visit to DRC, Türk highlighted the UN’s concern with the government’s decision to lift its 21-year-moratorium on executions in response to escalating violence and militant attacks. The lifting of the moratorium on February 9, 2024, enables the DRC to “resume hanging civilians and shooting military personnel convicted of certain crimes committed in wartime, under a state of siege or emergency, during a police operation to maintain or re-establish public order, or in any other exceptional circumstance.” The High Commissioner agrees that the DRC prisons are dealing with ‘overcrowding’. However, he disapproves of the overturning of the moratorium as the decision resulted in 128 individuals being sentenced to death by military courts. He further urged “authorities to ensure that these sentences are not carried out, and to finalize the legislative process already underway to abolish the death penalty.”

Amnesty International purports that to allow the death penalty is to facilitate a breach of human rights, namely, the right to life, freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, which are protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Differing opinions exist between UN officials and DRC politicians surrounding the correct measure for reducing prison violence and overcrowding. The decision was predated by the 2016 request in a press release for a suspension of the moratorium for two years by the Provincial Governor of the North Kivu Provincial Government, who declared the overturning essential to restoring safety and peace within the DRC and providing solace to victims families following the atrocities caused by certain prison detainees. He admitted awareness of the sanctity of human life yet deemed the violence from the convicted as deplorable and indescribable, further suggesting the need for suspension based on the mass escapes of prisoners facilitated by increasing insecurity. 

It must also be noted when considering DRC prisons and detention that according to Amnesty International, “the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association [are] routinely violated. Journalists, opposition members and activists, among others, [are] subjected to arbitrary detention and faced unfair trials.”