GENEVA (8 May 2025) – The adoption of a bill repealing
basic protections to political participation by the Council
of Ministers on 30 April 2025 and the signature of a decree
on 7 May 2025 suspending the activities of political parties
until further notice are a direct violation of basic human
rights, a group of independent human rights experts* warned
today.
“This decree suspending political activities
must be immediately repealed. In addition, if passed into
law, the 30 April bill will place Mali in contravention of
its human rights obligations, notably on freedoms of
association and expression,” the experts
stressed.
The Government of Mali has argued that the
repeal of existing laws did not call into question the
existence of political parties and that the Government only
sought to “stop the proliferation of political parties” in
the country.
However, the experts pointed out that the
proliferation of parties is easier to reduce with legitimate
electoral rules, including those that make registration
conditional to previous electoral performance. “Instead,
the recently adopted bill will make the registration of a
party and candidacies conditional to onerous financial
deposits, restricting the right to political participation
to sectors with high economic capacity,” they
warned.
“The government argues that these are direct
proposals from national dialogues: the 2021 “Assises
Nationales de la Refondation” and consultations on the
review of the Charter of Political Parties held in April
2025. However, no genuine consultation is possible in the
current climate of suppression of the civic space, where
opponents and independent journalists have reasons to fear
that free expression will be punished,” the experts
said.
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Several political parties boycotted the April
2025 consultations because they were reasonably concerned,
as the current events demonstrate that the Malian
Transitional authorities were using the process as a tool to
eventually dissolve political parties or ban their
activities.
Mali’s Council of Ministers also noted
other recommendations from the April 2025 consultations,
including naming the current head of state, Gen. Assimi
Goita as president, without elections, for a renewable
period of five years to be counted from 2025. The bill, as
well as the favourable reception of such alarming proposals
by the Council of Ministers, would betray national and
international commitments made by the Malian authorities,
the experts said.
They recalled that Gen. Assimi
Goïta himself, at the Council of Ministers meeting on 27
November 2024, called on the Government to “create the
conditions necessary for the organisation of transparent and
peaceful elections which should put an end to the
transition.” Mali had also accepted specific
recommendations to protect freedoms of association and
expression during the Universal Periodic Review of 2023: the
current actions would call into question the credibility of
Malian authorities.
The bill will now be presented to
the National Transitional Council, presided by Gen. Malick
Diaw, for approval.
“We urge the National
Transitional Council to refrain from approving this draft
legislation,” the experts said. “We stand ready to
assist the Government to revise the Amendment Bill to ensure
compliance with international human rights norms and
standards,” they added.
Following the adoption of
the bill, political parties have called on protests and
public activities on 3 and 4 May. However, they have alleged
that individuals claiming to support the transitional
authorities violently disrupted their gatherings. Further,
the political parties have called on new public gatherings
on 9 May.
“The right to peacefully assembly is
essential to the health of a vibrant political community,”
the experts said. “The Malian Transitional authorities
must scrupulously respect it and abstain from acts of
intimidation and repression that risk the physical integrity
and the rights of demonstrators.”
*The
experts: Eduardo Gonzalez, Independent
Expert on the situation of human rights in
Mali; Irene Khan, Special
Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and
expression; Gina Romero, Special
Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and
of
association.
