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Some 500 demonstrators massed outside the Belgian Embassy in Abidjan on Thursday denouncing a Belgian NGO that filed suit in court, on behalf of Ivorian victims of human rights, against ousted military strongman General Robert Guei, President Laurent Gbagbo and two serving ministers.
The protesters, grouped under an NGO umbrella called the Collective for the Restoration of the Image of Cote d’Ivoire, told the Belgium government to keep out of what they said was an international campaign to destabilise their country. Charles Ble Goude, spokesman for the protesters handed a “letter of indignation and protest” to the embassy’s first secretary, William De Baetes. In a statement later, the embassy said Brussels was powerless to intervene in matters already in the courts.
Some 150 rights victims - with the help of the Belgian NGO Prevention Genocides - filed the suit against Gbagbo, Guei and the ministers of the interior and civil protection Emile Boga Doudou and Moise Lida Kouassi. Under Belgian law the country’s courts can judge foreign leaders for human rights violations.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions