Niger: for the release of Moussa Tchangari

Serving the people

The dean of the examining magistrates notified him of two new charges, ‘intelligence with enemy powers’ and ‘undermining national defence’. He has been transferred to Filingué prison, 180 km from the capital Niamey.

Amnesty International rightly describes Moussa as ‘a prominent civil society leader’. In the 1980s, he was one of the leaders of the Union des Scolaires nigériens and fought for democratic rights. He was one of the leaders of the Coalition Against the High Cost of Living in 2005, organising demonstrations attended by over 100,000 people. He campaigned tirelessly for the defence of Niger’s sovereignty at a time when successive governments were selling off uranium mining to the French multinational AREVA (formerly COGEMA), now ORANO. He has been jailed several times, including in 2015 when he was accused of ‘undermining national defence’.

Repression and demagoguery

A few weeks after the coup d’état led by presidential guard general Abdourahamane Tiani in July 2023, Tchangari warned of the risks facing the country: ‘The duty of all those who care about the future of the Sahel is therefore not only, in these conditions, to oppose the seizure of power by force and the authoritarian excesses that we are already seeing; but also to firmly reject the military’s claim to be implementing the ‘all-security’ option that has failed with the civilian powers. ’

No dissent from the government was accepted: journalists were imprisoned and opponents stripped of their nationality. As for the former president, he has been arbitrarily detained since the coup 18 months ago.

Numerous appeals for the release of the AEC secretary have been published. The signatures include human rights organisations, academics, anti-globalisation activists and African anti-imperialist organisations such as the Malian party Solidarité africaine pour la démocratie et l’indépendance (SADI), which has also been the victim of repression by the coup plotters.

While Tchangari fought his long battle for the defence of human rights and the sovereignty of Niger, Tiani served the dictatorships in power with the docility required to rise from private second class to the rank of general, before discovering at just the right moment a nationalist and pan-Africanist streak... ideal for justifying his coup d’état.

L’Anticapitaliste 30 January 2025