- In Togo, protests in June against the high cost of living and for democracy were met with a violent crackdown. Members of the militia working for Faure Gnassingbé’s regime abducted, kidnapped, tortured, and murdered people.
- The International Federation for Human Rights-FIDH, the Ligue des droits de l’Homme-LDH (French Human Rights League), and the Collectif des avocats pour la démocratie, l’état de droit et les droits de l’Homme (Collective of Lawyers for Democracy, the Rule of Law and Human Rights) strongly condemn these acts of violence.
- The United Nations must immediately open an independent international inquiry into these events, and work to dismantle the militia.
Paris, 10 July 2025. On June 6, 26, 27, and 28, young artists and bloggers, who have become members of the Mouvement du 6 juin (M66), called on the Togolese people to protest in Lomé against rising electricity prices, the high cost of living, politically motivated arrests and imprisonment, and the constitutional coup led by Faure Gnassingbé’s regime in March 2024 that allows him to stay in power for life.
The protests were violently repressed by the police, the military, and to a great extent by the members of the government-backed militia. The crackdown took a heavy toll: arrests, hundreds injured, seven dead (including a minor), and bodies recovered from lagoons. These repeated violent acts of government repression, the latest was particularly brutal, are the manifestation of a culture of violence and impunity that is fostered by the regime to quell countervailing power and silence the voices of dissent against the rule of Faure Gnassingbé, who has been in power for 20 years.
Although law enforcement and security operations fall under the authority of the police, members of the government militia frequently use force and torture against the civilian population during protests. These acts of fierce repression are the expression of an escalation in violence accepted and maintained by the regime in power. An official government press release dated 29 June 2025, "congratulates the security forces for their professionalism and sense of responsibility".
The FIDH, LDH and the Collectif d’avocats call for the immediate release of anyone arrested during the protests and of all political prisoners in Togo. The organisations demand that the Togolese government comply with its international human rights obligations, in particular those that protect human dignity, the sanctity and inviolability of life and the human person, the physical integrity of the civilian population, and the right to freedom of assembly and of association.
In light of the lack of reaction from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union, the FIDH, LDH, and the Collectif d’Avocats call on the United Nations to conduct an independent international inquiry to dismantle the regime’s political militia, so that the perpetrators, accomplices and sponsors of the abuses can be held accountable before the law; and to prevent any repetition of these acts, without excluding the application of targeted sanctions against the regime’s high-ranking officials.
The organisations undertake to support all initiatives in the fight against impunity in Togo, and more particularly with regard to the crimes that occurred in Togo before, during, and after the presidential election of 24 April 2005, including asking the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate these crimes.
Given that grass-roots movements have called for protests in the coming days, the FIDH, LDH, and the Collectif d’Avocats ask the UN to take urgent and appropriate measures to protect the civilian population.
Finally, in view of the recurrent nature of the Togolese crisis and its effects on human rights and the civilian population, it is vital that the UN support the Togolese people in their desire for democratic change, which must entail the peaceful transfer of power.
