While Congo’s forests burn under the greed of illegal operators and its rivers are poisoned with mercury, those who still dare to defend life now face an equally insidious threat: a profiling maneuver imposed by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH).
In an unusually sharp statement (No. 005/ACEDH/2025), the Congolese Action for the Environment and Human Rights (ACEDH) denounces an “extremely perilous” process, formalized in August 2025, whose sole purpose is to create a blacklist of human-rights defenders. Behind a veneer of “transparency,” the CNDH demands an invasive trove of personal data: a request or recommendation letter, a copy of an ID, photos, an activity report, a sworn declaration, proof of legal existence—an administrative arsenal worthy of an intelligence agency.
Presented as voluntary, the operation is in fact mandatory: without the coveted ID card, defenders cannot obtain any protection. It opens the door to a system of “good” and “bad” defenders, where anyone who resists can be marginalized, punished, even erased. ACEDH warns of an “official national registry” that allows authorities to monitor, target, and revoke a defender’s card at any moment—a perfect instrument for silencing free voices. In a country where 97 activists were already arrested or prosecuted arbitrarily between 2020 and 2022, such a database looks more like a hunting list.
The outrage is even greater because Law No. 23/027 of June 15, 2023 never authorized such intrusion. It guaranteed the independence of defenders. The CNDH is trampling that law, along with the Constitution and the international instruments it is meant to uphold. Meanwhile, the September 2025 Global Witness report reminds us that at least 146 environmental defenders have been killed or have disappeared worldwide this year. Instead of protecting the planet’s sentinels, the CNDH is handing them over to their persecutors.
Those most at risk are farmers, Indigenous peoples, and the guardians of forests and rivers—the very people who resist mining and land grabs. Their vulnerability is obvious, yet the authorities prefer to demand their papers rather than safeguard their lives. This operation is not mere bureaucratic excess: it is a weapon of mass fear, a call to self-censorship, intimidation, and disappearance.
ACEDH therefore demands the immediate suspension of this measure; an assessment of its impact on rural defenders; presentation of beneficiaries’ proposals to decision-makers; the creation of a joint Defenders–CNDH commission; a thorough overhaul of the legal framework—including a referral to the Constitutional Court for unconstitutionality—and, if delays persist, intervention by both houses of Parliament to strike these toxic provisions from Congolese law. It also calls for an inclusive, transparent dialogue that meets international standards before any further action.
The defense of human rights is not a favor granted by the state: it is a cornerstone of democracy. Every identification card issued under this procedure will be seen for what it is—a license to hunt. Until the CNDH withdraws this scheme, it remains complicit in a politics of fear that turns defenders into targets. From Kinshasa to the forest villages, civil society has spoken. The CNDH must choose: protect freedoms or become the administrative arm of repression. History will not be kind to those who put life’s defenders on a blacklist.
By kilalopress