TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT Reports of torture and other ill-treatment by, among others, the SNR, police and the army, of detainees suspected of opposing the government continued. Torture methods included beating men with cables, iron reinforcing bars (rebar) and batons, as well as hanging heavy weights from genitals. Imbonerakure members were frequently accused of beating detainees during arrest. Impunity for such violations continued. Burundi had not yet established a National Preventive Mechanism against torture as set out in the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture. them were arrested and six student leaders were charged with rebellion. On 4 April, Joseph Nsabiyabandi, editor-inchief of Radio Isanganiro, was summoned for questioning by the SNR, and accused of collaborating with two radio stations set up by Burundian journalists in exile. On 9 June, the Mayor of Bujumbura refused to allow Amizero y’Abarundi, the parliamentary opposition coalition, composed of representatives from the National Liberation Forces and Union for National Progress, to hold a press conference on the grounds that the coalition did not have “legal personality”. SEXUAL AND GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS The Commission of Inquiry interviewed 49 survivors of sexual violence that took place between 2015 and 2017. Most of the cases involved rape of women and girls by police, often while arresting a male family member. The Commission also documented sexual violence against men in detention. It concluded that sexual violence appeared to be used as a way to assert dominance over people linked to opposition parties or movements. In January, the Bujumbura Court of Appeal overturned a decision by the Bar Association’s president not to disbar four lawyers following a request to do so by a prosecutor in 2016. Three of the lawyers were, therefore, disbarred while another was suspended for one year. The prosecutor had called for them to be struck off after they contributed to a report to the UN Committee against Torture. Germain Rukuki was arrested on 13 July; he was president of the community organization Njabutsa Tujane, an employee of the Burundian Catholic Lawyers Association and a former member of ACAT-Burundi (Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture, ACAT). The SNR held and interrogated him without a lawyer present, before transferring him to prison in Ngozi city on 26 July. On 1 August, he was charged with “undermining state security” and “rebellion”, for collaborating with ACATBurundi, which was banned in October 2016. The Public Prosecutor presented as evidence against him an email exchange from a period when ACAT-Burundi was legally registered in Burundi. Germain Rukuki was denied bail and remained in detention at the end of the year. Nestor Nibitanga, former member of the deregistered Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detained Persons (APRODH), was arrested in Gitega on 21 ARBITRARY ARRESTS AND DETENTIONS Arbitrary arrests and detentions continued, including during police searches in the socalled opposition neighbourhoods of Bujumbura. People were often arrested without warrants and only later informed of the accusations against them. Police and Imbonerakure sometimes used excessive force during arrests and attempted arrests. Former detainees said that they or their family had to pay vast sums of money to members of the SNR, police or Imbonerakure in exchange for their release. FREEDOMS OF EXPRESSION AND ASSEMBLY Restrictions on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly continued at all levels. University students in Bujumbura went on strike in March to protest against a new student loan and grant system; several of 108 Amnesty International Report 2017/18