🇨🇩 #DRC: Deeply concerned over the death threats directed at Congolese human rights defender and Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege, @mbachelet is calling for swift action to investigate who is behind the threats and bring them to justice. Learn more: https://t.co/303jCrJc7j pic.twitter.com/dB7zzLkKrr
— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) August 28, 2020
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet today expressed deep concern over recent death threats directed at the Congolese human rights defender and Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege, and called for swift action to investigate who is behind the threats and bring them to justice, according to reports:
Dr. Mukwege, who founded and runs the Panzi hospital in Bukavu, has won international recognition, including the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, for his decades of work helping thousands of women victims of sexual and gender-based violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He has also been a determined advocate against the use of rape as a weapon of war, and for increased protection of women.
He has also been a strong and consistent voice calling for those responsible for sexual violence to be brought to justice. He was a staunch supporter of the 2010 ‘Mapping Report’ by the UN Human Rights Office which chronicled hundreds of serious human rights violations and abuses that occurred in the eastern DRC between 1993 and 2003, in many cases identifying the groups and entities believed to be responsible for perpetrating the crimes.
A partner of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Dr. Mukwege “is a true hero – determined, courageous and extremely effective,” said Bachelet. “For years, he helped thousands of gravely injured and traumatized women when there was nobody else to take care of them, and at the same time he did a great deal to publicize their plight and stimulate others to try to grapple with the uncontrolled epidemic of sexual violence in the eastern DRC.”
