Two prominent figures in Chadian civil society, including a leading human rights activist and a well-known journalist, were released on Thursday.
Baradine Berdei Targuio, president of the Chadian Human Rights Organisation and a vocal critic of the Deby family’s long-standing rule, was released by the country’s powerful intelligence service after being held in detention for five months, according to his brother Hamit Berdei Targuio.
Badour Oumar Ali, the editor-in-chief of Tchadinfos.com, Chad’s leading online news platform, was also released on Thursday after spending 24 hours in custody, confirmed Mamadou Djimtebaye, director general of Tchadinfos.
Berdei Targuio was arrested in March, shortly after the death of opposition leader Yaya Dillo Djerou, who was killed when military forces surrounded his Socialist Party Without Borders office in N’Djamena, the capital. The opposition condemned the killing as an assassination, which occurred two months before presidential elections comfortably won by General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, the son of Idriss Deby Itno, who had ruled Chad with an iron fist for three decades.
Following Djerou’s death, audio messages reportedly from Berdei Targuio circulated within the ethnic Zaghawa community, to which both he and the Deby Itno family belong, calling for vengeance.
Berdei Targuio has faced legal troubles before. He was previously imprisoned between 2020 and 2021 for allegedly threatening the constitutional order but was pardoned by the younger Deby Itno. He was arrested again in December 2022, accused alongside some military officers of plotting a coup, but was once more pardoned in June last year.
Tchadinfos, the news organisation headed by Oumar Ali, operates a website, radio, and television station. It was forced to shut down for four days in late July after refusing to remove articles about a former minister.
Chad’s Organisation for Online Media reported that Oumar Ali was abducted by hooded and armed men in an unmarked vehicle before being interrogated for 24 hours by intelligence services.
General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno was elected president in May with over 60 percent of the vote in an election marred by disputes and boycotted by the opposition. He had been declared transitional president in 2021 following the death of his father, Idriss Deby Itno, who was killed by rebel forces.