After being detained following a brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters in October that left scores of people dead, at least 139 detainees have been released in Chad.
“They are free to return to their families,” Mahamat Allamine Al-Rachid, a deputy public prosecutor at the N’Djamena court reportedly said on Monday referring to people released from Koro-Toro, a prison 600 kilometres from the capital. A total of 59 were reportedly acquitted and 80 others received one to two years of suspended sentences.
The release of the detainees comes after a judge on Monday sentenced 262 people to prison terms ranging from two to three years, a decision that defense attorneys termed “illegal.” The defendants were accused of participating in an unauthorised gathering, destroying property, setting fire to property, and disturbing the peace.
On October 20, according to Chadian officials, police opened fire on protesters, killing over 50 people, including 10 members of the security forces, and arresting more than 300. Back then, protests opposing a decision to postpone the country’s transition to civilian administration were led by members of opposition parties and civil society organisations.
The real number, according to opposition parties, was significantly higher, and they assert that mass killings of unarmed citizens took place.
When former President Idriss Deby was murdered while visiting front-line troops battling rebels threatening his 30-year rule in April 2021, Chad was plunged into political unrest.
With the promise of elections after 18 months, in which he would not run, the military appointed his son, General Mahamat Deby, to serve as the head of a transitional military council, TMC. That change came to an end on October 20.
Deby, 38, declared an inclusive national dialogue with opposition parties and civil society organisations as part of the transition to establish the legal foundation for a new government. After numerous delays and the withdrawal of important actors who claimed that the TMC had not given them adequate assurances on the ineligibility of its members and the length of the transition, the debate finally started on August 20.
The TMC would be disbanded, but the conference also stated that elections would be held in two years, with Deby being sworn in as president and given the opportunity to compete for office at the end of the transitional period.