Niger’s ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum, has been held in detention along with his wife since a military coup removed him from power, a situation the United Nations has labelled “arbitrary.”
Bazoum, who took office in 2021, was deposed on July 26, 2023, by General Abdourahamane Tiani, the leader of his presidential guard. The coup was justified on claims that Bazoum had failed to protect the country from terrorist attacks.
Since his removal, he and his wife, Hadiza, have been confined under strict conditions at the presidential palace in Niamey.
“The deprivations of liberty of Mohamed Bazoum and Hadiza Bazoum are arbitrary,” stated a UN working group on arbitrary detention in a report obtained by AFP.
“The appropriate measure would be to immediately free Mr and Mrs Bazoum and to grant them the right to obtain compensation,” the group added. The working group operates under the UN Human Rights Council.
Bazoum’s legal team renewed calls for his release on Monday, emphasizing that the couple had been cut off from all outside contact—family, friends, and lawyers—since his phone was seized in October 2023.
“Only a doctor can visit them to bring food and medicine,” the lawyers’ collective said in a statement.
“The United Nations has rejected the shaky explanations and confirmed what the world already knows: president Bazoum is being held in a cruel and illegal manner,” said Reed Brody, a member of the legal team.
Niger’s military government has claimed Bazoum engaged in telephone discussions with “enemy obscurantist forces” in an attempt to orchestrate a foreign-backed attack to overthrow the junta.
However, the UN noted that the military leadership “has not furnished any explanation for Bazoum’s lengthy detention or for the absence of trials.”
In June, a junta-backed court stripped Bazoum of his presidential immunity, opening the door to a possible trial, though no date has been set.
In December 2023, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) court ordered his release, but Niger has since withdrawn from the regional bloc.
