Rights group condemns summary executions

The Ligue Ivoirienne des droits de l’homme (LIDHO) has condemned recent abuses which, it said, were committed by the security forces and has asked the military authorities to ensure they come to a swift end, according to a LIDHO news release issued on 2 March. The rights organisation cited several examples of human rights abuses, including by members of PC-Crise, a special crime-fighting unit set up after the military coup that ousted president Henri Konan Bedie on 24 December 1999. “Daily, people presented as criminals are shot dead by members of the PC-Crise and their corpses are presented on television,” it said. “These so-called operations against banditry are often carried out on the basis of mere denunciations, even anonymous phone calls,” it charged. In one incident that occurred on 6 February, it added, two people died and several others were wounded when members of the security forces fired shots in a night club in the high-density suburb of Treichville. The normal role of the forces of law and order is to protect the population and not to terrorise it, LIDHO said. It called on the head of state and the military-led government to take steps to end these abuses.