On paper, you should be fine.
Even though you’ve been taken into custody by police, Chad’s constitution and the country’s international human rights obligations guarantee all detainees the right of access to a lawyer, family visits, and health care. Under Chadian law, authorities can hold you for up to 48 hours, but then they have to let you go unless they present proof that justifies continued detention.
But the authorities don’t care much about what’s on paper, and you’re anything but fine.
In fact, you’re pushed into a vehicle with others sharing your fate and begin a 600-kilometer journey from the capital, N’Djamena, to the notorious high-security prison Koro Toro.
The facility was designed to house “violent extremists,” but all you did was exercise your right to protest. Along with many others, you called for civilian democratic rule. Now, you’re all on your way to Koro Toro – with hundreds of other men and boys.
The “transitional government” headed by General Mahamat Déby does not seem keen to transition to democracy and has, on several occasions, violently suppressed such demonstrations. Perhaps the deadliest crackdown was on October 20, when security forces fired live ammunition at protesters, killing and injuring scores. They beat people, chased them into homes, and arrested them.
Many of those hose arrested were sent to Koro Toro. There, they were held incommunicado, with no access to family members and lawyers – despite the state’s obligations on paper.
Some who managed to get out of Koro Toro, including two children, told us that several people died both on the way to Koro Toro and at the facility. They said prisoners were often denied food and water, and children were held in the same cells as adults.
And the whereabouts of some detainees is still unknown today, three months on...
You were sent to Koro Toro, and no one’s heard anything from you since.