Congo refuses visa renewal for US human rights activist

KINSHASA (Reuters) – Congolese authorities refused to renew the visa of a prominent American human rights activist, the government said Tuesday. The decision followed expulsions of other foreigners in a tense election year.

Government spokesman Lambert Mende did not say why the visa for Ida Sawyer was not renewed. He also did not say when Sawyer, a senior researcher in the Democratic Republic of Congo for US-based Human Rights Watch, would need to leave the country.

Sawyer has worked for HRW in Congo since 2008. She has been among the most vocal critics of what the United Nations and rights groups say is a growing crackdown on dissent as elections scheduled for November grow closer.

In a statement, HRW executive director Kenneth Roth called the move “a brazen attempt to muzzle reporting on the government’s brutal repression of those supporting presidential term limits.”

The constitution requires that President Joseph Kabila, who has been in power since 2001, step down after the election. While the government says more than a year is needed to enroll new voters, opponents say the delay is aimed only at holding onto power.

Dozens of people were killed in January 2015 during anti-government protests over a proposed revision to the country’s electoral code that could have delayed the election by years. Sawyer criticized security forces at the time for using “unlawful and excessive force.” In January of this year, she called for targeted sanctions against officials responsible for violence against civilians.

The government denies using excessive force against protesters or targeting its political opponents.

The US government in June imposed sanctions on the police chief of Congo’s capital city, Kinshasha, for what it described as violent suppression of opposition to Kabila’s government.

In April, the Congolese government expelled Jason Stearns, the American director of New York University’s Congo Research Group, shortly after he published a report linking soldiers to massacres of civilians.

Two activists who investigated logging practices for Global Witness were accused of inciting a local community to revolt. They were forced to leave last month. The London-based NGO denied the allegations.