Pulchérie Gbalet, social activist and president of the Ivorian Citizen Alternative (ICA) a civil society organization was arrested on Tuesday August 23, 2022. This personality of the Ivorian civil society, famous for his numerous media outlets on socio-economic problems. policies in Côte d’Ivoire is not his first arrest.
Indeed, she had previously been imprisoned between August 2020 and April 2021 on the grounds of having “demonstrated and called to demonstrate against the candidacy of the Head of State Alassane Ouattara for a third term” in the elections. presidential elections of October 2020. In a very fragile and tense political context, his arrest had sparked a wave of criticism, in particular from the pioneers of the opposition and by the OIDH (Ivorian Observatory for Human Rights) which perceived it as a serious attack on freedom of expression.
Since the arrest of the 49 Ivorian soldiers, which occurred on July 10, 2022 at Bamako airport by the Malian authorities, Pulchérie Gbalet has multiplied the interventions and criticisms, in particular concerning the government actions undertaken with a view to freeing them.
Faced with this diplomatic crisis, several mediations are underway through the Togolese head of state, or even Ivorian and Malian religious men.
The president of the ICA, who had visited Mali, had met with NGO leaders and relatives of the military junta in power. During this meeting, the fate of the 49 detained Ivorian soldiers was discussed. Considered as “mercenaries”, these soldiers were charged by the Malian courts in particular for “attempting to undermine the external security of the State”.
On her return from Mali on August 3, she was arrested at Abidjan airport, then released.
On Monday, August 22, Pulchérie Gbalet was placed under a warrant of committal and sent to the House of Arrest and correction of Abidjan (MACA). The Public Prosecutor at the Abidjan-Plateau Court of First Instance, Adou Richard Christophe gave the following Friday in a press release, the reasons for his arrest and detention.
” (…) As part of her activism aimed at discrediting the institutions of the Republic, Dame Pulchérie Gbalet met with some relatives of soldiers detained in Mali with a view to encouraging them to disavow government action. The aforementioned facts, the seriousness of which no longer needs to be demonstrated, fall within the ambit of articles 155, 179 and 183 of the penal code”.
He specified that the facts attributed to Lady Pulchérie Gbalet are in particular qualified as:
“Agreement with the agents of a foreign power likely to harm the military and diplomatic situation of Côte d’Ivoire, maneuvers likely to discredit institutions and cause serious disturbances to public order and dissemination of false news likely to cause damage to the morale of the population”.
Continuing, Mr. Adou warned people who would violate the criminal law believing they were enjoying their right to freedom of expression.
But for the victim’s lawyers, all this would only be a conspiracy. One of them, Me Eric Saki, mentioned the fact that his arrest came a few hours after the thinly veiled threats of deputy Fofana Amaral, who in a video made the following comments: “A lady who does not even know how to align his words. She is insulting the President. She got out of prison, we looked at her. She didn’t even say thank you to the President. If she keeps doing this, listen: we’re gonna get her back. »
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