Human rights groups in Congo-Brazzaville on Wednesday accused the central African country’s government of hundreds of abuses in the past year, ranging from torture to electoral fraud.
In a report, the Center for Action for Development (CAD) group said it had recorded 572 rights violations in 2022.
Torture cases “remain routine,” he said, citing several incidents in which security officers arrested suspects and beat them with hammers, sometimes to death.
The parliamentary elections held in July were also “the saddest in the country’s electoral history” and were marked by “massive fraud,” CAD said.
President Denis Sassou Nguesso’s party won the election comfortably.
Some candidates from the Labor Party won 100 percent of the vote in the district, according to NGOs.
Nguesso has been president of the Republic of Congo – also known as Congo-Brazzaville – for almost 40 years.
CAD also drew attention to relations this year where an opposition figure from neighboring Gabon was found with a suitcase stuffed with the equivalent of $1.9 million in local currency.
The rights group said the scandal showed “the complacency of the country’s highest authorities.”
The Republic of Congo ranks 164 out of 180 in the Corruption Perceptions Index 2022 by the NGO Transparency International.