The DRC is challenged to rescind a “discriminatory” law regarding Congoleseness
Positions
are being taken against a contentious bill on “congolity” in
the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, starting with the first concerned parties and going all the way up to
the Catholic bishops, passing through political parties and organizations of
civil society. People often call this proposed law the “Tshiani
law” after its main supporter, Noel Tshiani, who ran for president in
the 2018 election.
The bill was brought to the National Assembly in July 2021, but its opponents quickly voted against it because they thought it was “dangerous.” The public didn’t hear about it again until March, when it was announced that it would be on the agenda for the current parliamentary session. The members of the Association of Mestizos in the Congo (Asmeco) felt that they were being directly targeted by this bill. On Friday, they staged a demonstration in front of the Parliament building and submitted a memorandum in which they voiced their opposition to what they called a “discriminatory law.”
According
to the draft of the proposed law, which was reviewed by AFP, it states that the
law “on Congoleseness is unfair, ambiguous,” and that its
intent is to “harm a category of Congolese.” Asmeco strongly
urges elected officials to “reject” it so that the Congolese
people can “keep peace, harmony, tranquility, and cohesion among
themselves.” This association was established in 2007, and its
president, Ferdinand Lokunda, indicated that its members include Congolese
people who were born to Congolese parents and parents from other continents
(African, Asian, European, etc.).
A “dangerous
law” that “threatens social peace” was also condemned
by the highly influential Episcopal Conference, which did so through the medium
of its secretary general, Father Donatien Nshole. Across the country, political
parties and groups that represent civil society have set up protests against
this law in a number of different places.
If this
legislation were to be passed, for instance, the businessman Moe Katumbi, who
has already declared that he will run in the presidential elections that will
take place in December, would be disqualified from the competition due to the
fact that his father is Italian.
In an
interview conducted on Monday by AFP, Mike Mukebay, a provincial deputy of
Kinshasa and the communicator for Mr. Katumbi’s party, expressed his belief
that this measure is “in reality a trap” for the power “to
proceed to a constitutional revision with vague outlines. “With it, “we are
forbidden to marry nationals of other nationalities; they want to pass on the
idea that the children of mixed marriages have blood that has been denatured.
“This cannot be tolerated in any way,” he added.
In recent
decades of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s history, Congolese people
whose parents were not originally from the country have held a variety of
positions of responsibility and even campaigned for president.
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