LEGAL FRAMEWORK

A new constitution came into effect on August 30. Both the previous constitution, valid until August 29, and the new constitution stipulate the country is a secular state and establish the principle of separation of religion and state. The new constitution states “everyone has the right to manifest their religion or beliefs, alone or in a group, in public or private, subject to respect for the law, public order, good morals and rights of others.” It provides for equal protection under the law for all citizens and prohibits discrimination against citizens in education, access to public services, or “any other matter” on account of their religion and, unlike the previous constitution, does not explicitly prohibit “fundamentalism.” The constitution requires the head of state to take an oath of office “before God” that includes a promise to fulfill the duties of office without religious bias. The prior constitution stated that all persons are equal under the law regardless of religion and that freedom of conscience, religion, and belief are guaranteed, within conditions established by the law. It also prohibited, without defining it, any form of “religious fundamentalism” as well as identification with a religion by political parties.

Religious groups, except for animist spiritualist communities, are required to register with the Ministries of the Interior, Public Security, and Territorial Administration. To register, religious groups must prove they have a minimum of 1,000 members and that their leaders have adequate religious education. Animist spiritualist groups, regardless of their size, may receive benefits and exemptions offered to registered groups.

The law permits the government to deny registration to any religious group deemed offensive to public morals or likely to disturb social peace. It allows the suspension of registered religious groups if their activities are judged subversive by legal entities. There are no fees for registration as a religious group. Registration confers official recognition and benefits, such as exemptions from customs tariffs for vehicles or equipment imported into the country. There are no penalties prescribed for groups that do not register.

The law does not prohibit religious instruction in public or private schools, but religious instruction is not part of the public-school curriculum.

The country is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

GOVERNMENT PRACTICES

In February, MINUSCA reported that in Mbres village, Nana-Grebizi Prefecture, elements of the country’s armed forces (FACA) attacked and killed a 20-year-old Fulani man of Chadian origin in a camp of Chadian cattle herders and stole the cattle of 12 other Fulani herders after receiving a report that the group had weapons. In May, according to the Human Rights Division (HRD) of MINUSCA, FACA elements severely mistreated two Fulani herders at Ouandago, killing one of them. The FACA soldiers intercepted the herders, accusing them of selling oxen to armed groups. They took the two men to the FACA base at Ouandago, where they questioned and severely beat them with wooden sticks. One herder died from his injuries, while the other was reportedly transferred to the FACA base in Kaga-Bandoro. At year’s end, no information regarding the fate or whereabouts of the detained herder was available.

MINUSCA reported continued cases of arbitrary arrests and detentions linked to searches for members of armed groups by FACA elements and the Wagner Group in areas with large Muslim communities. In April, MINUSCA reported the Muslim community in the Lakouanga neighborhood of Batangafo, Ouham Prefecture, stopped all commercial activities to protest targeting and arbitrary arrests of persons by FACA, based on accusations of association with armed groups. The Muslim community had been denouncing the abuses since early March. In response, MINUSCA, FACA, Gendarmerie, and National Police officials met with the Muslim community at the Grand Mosque in Bangui. Following the meeting, the FACA gendarme commanders apologized, and the stores reopened the same day.

On September 7, the Special Criminal Court (SCC) – a UN-backed domestic court made up of national and international judges and prosecutors with primacy over other courts in the country – arrested and charged Abdoulaye Hissene for attacks he led in 2017. Hissene was a former leader of a Seleka (an erstwhile coalition of armed, mostly Muslim groups that often targeted Christian communities) armed group, the Popular Front for the Rebirth of the Central African Republic (FPRC). Despite an in-absentia conviction in 2018 in a Bangui criminal court, he was able to live in the capital without restriction until this arrest. At year’s end, Hissene remained in detention at the Roux camp prison. Also in September, SCC authorities arrested Edmond Patrick Abrou and charged him for his role in attacking the village of Boyo, Ouaka Prefecture, in 2021. Abrou remained in detention at year’s end. The self-proclaimed anti-Balaka general faced charges of persecution of a group on religious grounds, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. At year’s end, Idriss Ibrahim Khalil, arrested in 2022 for war crimes and accused of a massacre at a camp for IDPs in Alindao in 2018 that left 112 mainly Christian civilians dead, remained in pretrial detention at Roux camp prison.

In October, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced he was withdrawing charges against Maxime Mokom. Khan said he had considered “the totality of the evidence in the Mokom case and, in light of changed circumstances regarding the availability of witnesses,” concluded there was “no reasonable prospect of conviction at trial even if the charges were confirmed.” Mokom was a founder of the anti-Balaka militia movement, elements of which targeted Muslims and others. Chadian forces transferred Mokom to The Hague in 2022 to be tried at the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Information as to Mokom’s whereabouts after the ICC announcement was unavailable at year’s end.

The ICC trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity of senior anti-Balaka leaders Alfred Yekatom and Patrice Ngaissona that began in 2021 was continuing, and at year’s end, the defense had begun presenting its case. The ICC also continued to pursue cases against ex-Seleka (armed successors of the Seleka after the latter was officially disbanded) leaders. For example, Mahamat Said Kani’s trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity opened in 2022 and was continuing at year’s end.

According to the Coordination of Central African Muslim Organizations (COMUC), an umbrella organization of civil society actors in the country, the Muslim community felt marginalized and perceived a high degree of inequality and injustice in their interactions with the administrative state. A report submitted in February by COMUC to the UN Human Rights Council for the Universal Periodic Review of the Central African Republic stated that arbitrary detention, abuses, and extrajudicial killings of Muslims remained prevalent and were seldom investigated. According to COMUC, security forces unlawfully subjected Muslims to ethnic and religious profiling and accused them without evidence of belonging to or assisting armed groups. It said Muslims were often subjected to harsh treatment in detention and released only after paying bribes. COMUC also cited restrictions on movement, based on the behavior of security forces at government-run checkpoints. While demands for bribes were common for all at checkpoints, it said security forces targeted Muslims “for extra extortion” and abuse. It said the Muslim-majority Peuhl (also known as Fulani) population was particularly affected by these restrictions, in part because many were nomadic.

In the same report, COMUC said Muslims, particularly women and girls, experienced discrimination in access to medical care, a problem exacerbated by a failed health care system that affected the entire population.

The 2013-14 destruction of public buildings that housed official records in Muslim communities resulted in a lack of birth certificates for many Muslim children and adolescents. As a result of not having birth documents, many Muslim children could not attend school. In its report to the UN Human Rights Council, COMUC also stated that the state failed to protect Muslim students from discriminatory treatment in school by teachers and other students.

Muslim youth leaders and members of COMUC described difficulties Muslim residents faced when registering for the national identity document required to receive social services. COMUC also said increased restrictions on nationality specified in the new constitution were discriminatory and made the process of proving citizenship more onerous for Muslims lacking the necessary documentation. Several community leaders decried higher fees for self-registering Muslims, who they said were often required by corrupt officials to pay five times the published rate for the same identity document services as non-Muslims. They also stated they were required to produce more documentation than non-Muslims to prove their citizenship and residency.

MINUSCA reported there was an increase in government discrimination against the Muslim and Fulani communities, particularly pertaining to the issuance of identity documents in Bangui and Ombella M’Poko, Ouham-Pende, Mambere-Kadei, and Haute-Kotto Prefectures. It said members of the Peuhl and Muslim communities were often requested to pay higher fees and present additional documents, such as parents’ birth certificates, to obtain identity cards. MINUSCA stated that “an official authority” confirmed that he had received instructions from his superiors to request additional documents from persons with Muslim-sounding names when issuing identity cards. MINUSCA observers said widely held prejudices calling into question the citizenship of Muslims residing in the country further complicated the procurement of identity documents for Muslims. In February, the Coalition of Muslim Organizations for Justice, Equality, and Equity (COMJEEQ) also criticized barriers placed on Muslims applying for national identity cards, citing the frequent requirements that Muslims pay higher fees and produce original birth certificates, obstacles that non-Muslims did not face, and describing them as evidence of discrimination against the Muslim community.

According to MINUSCA, on July 12, in Ouaka Prefecture, police arrested approximately 50 civilians in their homes, most of them Muslim, including a 16-year-old girl, for lack of identity papers. The arrestees had to pay 15,000 Central African francs ($25) each to be released. Those who could not pay remained in detention. In March, Ali Ousmane, Muslim Community spokesperson for Justice, Equality, and Equity spoke out against what he described as the discrimination members of the Muslim community experienced when seeking a national identity card, and, in a public broadcast interview on Radio Ndeke Luka, called on the government to address the problem. As of year’s end, the government had not responded to the request.

COMUC continued to report that residents in the PK5 community faced more running water outages than those in other Bangui neighborhoods. COMUC said it believed this was because the city deliberately allocated fewer resources to the area due to its religious demographic. During the year, the district experienced an accelerated influx of Muslim IDPs seeking economic opportunity in the capital, whose homes, according to residents, had no access to running water, sewage, or electricity. Community leaders said the new arrivals believed they would be physically safer in communities of the same faith and wanted convenient access to religious services.

Muslims, including the Ministers of Justice, Transport, and Livestock and the Minister Advisor to the President, occupied some senior government positions; the number of Muslims in such positions, however, declined during the year. Civil society leaders in the Muslim community stated members of the Islamic faith were largely absent from key civil service roles. COMUC leaders attributed this to a small Muslim-candidate pool resulting from a dearth of schools and educational investment in Muslim-majority regions. Despite diversity targets outlined in the National Defense Plan and an increase in active recruiting efforts, most Muslim members of the armed forces were demobilized armed group members rather than former civilians. Civil society leaders and law enforcement officials reported Muslims faced recruitment bias in the national police and gendarmes.

President Touadera, a Christian, continued the precedent he set in 2021 of attending Islamic prayer services during Eid celebrations. On April 21, he attended Eid al-Fitr prayers at the Central Mosque in Bangui’s Third District, and on June 28, he participated in Eid al-Adha prayers at the Lakouanga Mosque in Bangui. During both visits, Touadera called for social cohesion and asked worshipers to continue praying for a return to peace and security.

On July 30, voters approved a new constitution in a referendum. The Constitutional Court validated the new constitution on August 21, replacing the one that had been in effect since 2016. Multiple Muslim civil society organizations, including the Muslim Women’s Movement against Exclusion in the Central African Republic and the Association of Muslim Youth against Exclusion in Central African Republic, and political and religious leaders protested against the new constitution. They called on the Muslim community to boycott the referendum, as it considered part of the draft constitution to be discriminatory in its citizenship requirements. The final version of the new constitution defines Central African citizens as “all persons whose parents are themselves of Central African origin.” According to AbdoulAziz Sali, Head of Partnerships for COMUC, the nationality definition will allow continued discrimination against Muslims because they often cannot prove their parents are of Central African origin due to missing or nonexistent birth records. He also said that, when applying for identity records, Muslims are held to a higher standard because their last names are interpreted as “foreign” by government officials, resulting in greater scrutiny of their applications.

In June, the High Council of Communication published a decision suspending all political debates on faith-based radio stations. The decision targeted six stations, including the Christian radio stations Radio Notre Dame, the Voice of Gospel, and Radio Maria.

ACTIONS BY FOREIGN FORCES AND NONSTATE ACTORS

In May, according to the HRD, the detention and reported torture of an imam and his cousin, who said the perpetrators were the Wagner Group, led Muslim merchants in the PK5 neighborhood of Bangui to launch a general strike in the capital in protest of multiple detentions of Muslims by Wagner Group elements. The government sent a delegation led by Minister of Interior and Public Security Michel Nicaise Nassin to the neighborhood to ease tensions. The strike ended after the Minister’s visit.

In January, according to the HRD, the Wagner Group engaged in the unlawful detention of 15 Muslim civilians in Nana-Grebizi Prefecture. At year’s end, the fate of the detainees was unknown.

The HRD first reported in March that a self-defense force, composed primarily of members of the Azande Christian ethnic group present in the southeastern corner of the country and the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo, threatened the Muslim community in Haute-Mboumou Prefecture. The Azande group reportedly killed three Muslim men and was responsible for the disappearance of six others. In August, MINUSCA reported the Azande self-defense force was targeting Muslims. After a battle between FACA and the Azande self-defense group, MINUSCA conducted a patrol and said it found Muslims could no longer buy food or other items in local markets because Azande local residents were excluding Muslims from the markets and throwing stones at Muslim women. Local leaders reported the Azande self-defense group pressured residents to take these actions against the Muslim community.

NGOs, UN agencies, and other observers said multiple local militias and armed rebel groups continued to foment violence and attack both civilians and government targets. Government control of significant portions of the national territory remained tenuous. Observers noted that intermittent clashes continued through contested areas. Most observers, including the UN panel of experts on the country, described the violence as a matter of ethnic identity –that mostly, but not exclusively, overlapped with religious beliefs – with political and economic power struggles as important root causes and primary drivers. For example, members of the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), the country’s largest rebel group, included two predominantly Christian, anti-Balaka groups, Aile Mokom and Aile Ngaissona; three predominantly Muslim groups, the Central African Patriotic Movement (MPC), FPRC, and Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC); and the predominantly Fulani Muslim-led 3R (Retour, Reclamation, et Rehabilitation). The MPC, UPC, and FPRC were formerly part of the Seleka alliance of rebel militia groups that claimed power through an armed rebellion and takeover in 2013 and prompted the emergence of the rival anti-Balaka movement.