Burundi pardons journalist sentenced to ten years in jail

3 months ago 57

By AFP

16 August 2024 | 7:11 am

Burundi has pardoned a journalist sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly "undermining the integrity of the national territory", the presidency announced late Thursday. Floriane Irangabiye was arrested in August 2022 while visiting her family in the East African nation and sentenced in January 2023, provoking international concerns over press freedoms. In a notice…

Burundi has pardoned a journalist sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly “undermining the integrity of the national territory”, the presidency announced late Thursday.

Floriane Irangabiye was arrested in August 2022 while visiting her family in the East African nation and sentenced in January 2023, provoking international concerns over press freedoms.

In a notice posted on X, President Evariste Ndayishimiye said — in a decision dated August 14 — that he “grants the presidential pardon measure in favour of Mrs. Floriane Irangabiye.”

It went on to state that she “benefits from a total remission of sentences.”

The human rights group ACAT Burundi hailed the decision, but in a post on X urged Ndayishimiye “to continue on this path by releasing all other people unjustly imprisoned.”

“Justice and human rights must be respected for all,” it added.

Irangabiye’s case had provoked international condemnation, with the United Nations voicing concern last year over her imprisonment “simply for doing her job”.

Irangabiye had been living in neighbouring Rwanda for a decade prior to her arrest, according to Amnesty International.

Ndayishimiye, who took power in 2020, has been praised for slowly ending years of Burundi’s isolationism under former leader Pierre Nkurunziza’s chaotic and bloody rule.

But he has failed to improve its wretched record on human rights and the African Great Lakes nation of 12 million people remains one of the poorest on the planet.

Burundi is ranked 108th out of 180 countries for freedom of the press, according to Global media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

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