July 6, 2025 – Sadiki Shemukobya Espoir, a well-known activist, national coordinator of the Association Nationale des Victimes du Congo (ANVC), and an active member of the RODDDI-RDC network, is not a criminal. He is currently imprisoned for daring to defend victims of forced displacement and for documenting environmental violations in the mining zones of Haut-Uélé. His arrest, which took place in Watsa, is not only illegal—it is a glaring reflection of a corrupt judicial system complicit in and silent about the violence inflicted on environmental and human rights defenders.
While the country is cloaked in slogans about the “rule of law,” the reality on the ground is far more brutal. Here, justice does not protect—it punishes those who speak out. The administration does not govern—it crushes anything that disrupts its comfort. And society? It looks the other way—until a name like Sadiki’s forces a reckoning and exposes our collective hypocrisy. Sadiki was arrested while on an official and entirely legal mission to document abuses committed against communities displaced by mining operations—particularly in areas influenced by Kibali Gold Mine, whose practices have repeatedly drawn local outrage. Villages flattened, homes destroyed by the military, indigenous people hunted down in the rain—this is the reality Sadiki tried to make visible. And that is what made him a target. It is this courageous civic work that authorities now seek to silence.
The man behind his arrest? Watsa’s territorial administrator, Magayi Missa Dieudonné—a name now associated with an indefensible decision. No clear warrant, no proper procedure. No justice, only brute force. This is administrative repression laid bare, against a man whose only weapons were his voice and his files. But civil society networks are not backing down. From Bukavu, Kinshasa, Uvira—calls for Sadiki’s immediate release are growing louder and more determined. The ANVC describes it as an “act of humiliation” and warns: if this situation continues, the struggle will intensify on all fronts. RODDDI denounces what it calls a “legalized strategy of terror” targeting humanitarian activists. UNICOPS, meanwhile, reminds us that in this very province, soldiers open fire on civilians as if in conquered territory—while the world looks away. At this stage, symbolic mobilization is no longer enough. What’s at stake is the very right to defend. The right to breathe. The right to document what is destroying our environment and our communities.
What is the Congolese justice system waiting for? Since when has local tyranny overpowered national law? How many more activists must be imprisoned, silenced, or killed before the administration awakens from its complicit slumber? Every hour Sadiki remains in detention is a shared disgrace—for the state, for the judiciary, and for a civil society that has remained too passive. It is unacceptable that those who fight for displaced people, forests, and human rights are the ones being imprisoned. Today, voices are rising. Letters are circulating. Protests are being organized. But that will not be enough. The streets must speak. The media must echo. International institutions must intervene. Congolese society must stop looking away. The time has come to demand accountability—loudly and unequivocally—and to call for the unconditional and immediate release of Sadiki Shemukobya Espoir. Failing to do so sends a chilling message to all environmental defenders: “You will be alone.” And that—we must not accept.
By Franck Zongwe Lukama
