Fully Authoritarian
World’s Population
Population
HRF classifies the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
The DRC is a unitary state with a semi-presidential political system with a bicameral parliament. The Head of State, Felix Tshisekedi, came to power in the fraudulent December 2018 elections and secured re-election in the flawed and discredited 2023 elections. Since gaining independence from Belgium in 1960, the DRC has experienced recurrent internal political turmoil and the effects of global and regional powers’ competition over its immense geostrategic natural resources. The giant country the size of Western Europe has thus experienced 32 years of dictatorship—including a quarter of a century of totalitarian rule—cyclical rebellions, forceful power grabs, political assassinations, and the two bloodiest wars since World War II. Since the restoration of a constitutional, multi-party system in 2006, the country has experienced four flawed elections and its first-ever peaceful handover of power, but also degenerating violent instability and humanitarian catastrophes in the mineral-rich east. With an entrenched political culture of patronage, cross-carpeting, corruption, and impunity, successive regimes have followed authoritarian power consolidation via the capture of government institutions and repression. Since January 2025, the central government has lost authority over large swaths of North Kivu and South Kivu–including the two largest eastern DRC cities of Goma and Bukavu–as a result of a military offensive by M23 rebels and Rwandan troops.
National elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. The regime systematically curtails the opposition’s ability to campaign, engages in significant voting irregularities or electoral fraud, and undermines electoral oversight.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. The regime systematically targets political opponents, independent journalists, and critics through arbitrary arrests and lawfare, and violently suppresses protests. Through the capture of the media regulatory institutions and the national public broadcaster, co-option of private news outlets, and crackdown on independent journalists, the regime constrains the press, and fear of retribution causes journalists to self-censor media outlets.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. With its supermajority in the legislature and extensive presidential powers of appointment of top judges, Tshisekedi’s ruling Sacred Union of the Nation (USN) coalition has negated the separation of powers and turned the other two branches of government into subordinate extensions of a disproportionately powerful executive. The courts routinely rule in favor of the executive.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, national elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win.
Since the 2006 general elections–the first multi-party polls since 1965—the country has held four flawed electoral cycles with steadily plummeting turnout. Pre-election repression against the opposition, electoral malfeasance, and post-election legal challenges before the courts have discredited the outcomes of all four presidential polls. The 2023 presidential election, in which Tshisekedi claimed 73% of the vote with a 55-point margin over his most serious opponent, Moise Katumbi, followed the pattern of the previous four elections with pre-election repression against the opposition, significant fraud and manipulation, deliberate voter suppression, intimidation and disenfranchisement, and legal challenges to the official results ultimately dismissed by the country’s highest court.
The regime has systematically, unfairly, and significantly hindered real, mainstream opposition parties’ or candidates’ electoral campaigns. Its most serious political opponents and their allies are often the targets of efforts to legally disqualify them from the ballot, intimidation, restrictions on movement, and other forms of obstruction of their campaigns. Particularly in pre-election periods, Congolese authorities engage in repression through arresting key advisors and opposition spokespeople, preventing gatherings, and disrupting campaigns. In 2023, opposition leader Moise Katumbi of Together for the Republic was identified as a top challenger to Tshisekedi ahead of the polls. His campaign experienced repression through authorities banning their political rallies in Kongo-Central and experiencing disruptions and police interference at events. Katumbi’s party spokesman was brutally murdered, found dead in his car in Kinshasa, in July 2023. Although the official report ruled the death a suicide, Katumbi has maintained that the death was politically motivated and a form of retribution by the state. It also occurred in the context of a broader crackdown on Katumbi’s circle ahead of the 2023 presidential election. Salomon Kalonda, Katumbi’s special advisor, was detained at a military prison and accused of treason. He was later additionally formally charged with inciting military disloyalty, receiving classified documents, and supporting AFC-M23’s efforts to overthrow the government, and authorities raided both Kalonda and Katumbi’s residences. There were also efforts in 2021 and 2023 to disqualify Katumbi from the presidential ballot by introducing a bill to restrict candidacy to only individuals with two Congolese parents, as well as a petition to the Constitutional Court, which argued that Katumbi was not a Congolese national but rather held Italian citizenship. Furthermore, the candidate widely believed to have rightfully won the 2018 election—Martin Fayulu—faced convoy attacks in both 2018 and 2023. In the earlier case, police used live ammunition to disperse supporters, whereas the latter involved civilian supporters of the ruling party. Katumbi and Fayulu have regularly been the targets of systematic interference in their campaigns as a means to intimidate and tilt the playing field in favor of the regime.
The regime has engaged in systematic, significant voting irregularities or electoral fraud. While elections do take place every five years, a pattern has emerged in the DRC wherein the outcome is heavily manipulated by the incumbent party. In 2018, as the national election results began to trickle in and it became clear that President Kabila’s hand-picked successor Shadary would not win, Kabila approached Tshisekedi’s camp to broker a deal. While independent tallies reported opposition candidate Martin Fayulu as the clear winner (garnering over 60% of the vote in some analyses), the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), headed by a Kabila ally, released official results declaring Felix Tshisekedi the victor at 38% vote share. Independent investigations suggest that Kabila manipulated the election results to favor Tshisekedi, the candidate he presumed would allow him to share power behind the scenes, rather than allowing a true opposition victory.
Similarly, in 2023, various tactics were used to skew results in favor of incumbent President Tshisekedi. Reports highlighted systematic abuses such as the placement of voting machines in some candidates’ private residences, deliberate voter disenfranchisement, intimidation and suppression, vote-buying, unsealed ballot boxes, and illegal extensions of voting, and these phenomena occurred most prominently in regions characterized by greater opposition support. In the end, a Tshisekedi ally chairing the CENI declared the latter victorious without allowing an independent audit of the voter registry. Opposition candidates such as Moise Katumbi and Martin Fayulu, the National Episcopal Conference of the Congo (CENCO), various other independent groups, and the Carter Center, a US-based organization, all decried the elections as a sham and fraught with fraud.
The regime has systematically and seriously undermined independent electoral oversight. The majority party in the legislature and the President have ascendency in determining the composition of the CENI, and Tshisekedi and his USN coalition-dominated legislature have carried on a longstanding practice of stacking the Commission with allies. In October 2021, Tshisekedi appointed his close ally Denis Kadima as CENI chair despite public outcry from the opposition and both the influential Catholic and Protestant churches. Tshisekedi further reformed the composition of the Commission in 2021, allocating seats in a way that offered a majority to the ruling coalition rather than civil society members. This move was seen as an affront to the independence of the institution, extending the regime’s influence and increasing perceptions that CENI is aligned with the executive.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. Freedom of speech and the right to protest are severely restricted, particularly with regard to sensitive topics such as the unsolved assassinations of opposition figures, Rwandan hybrid warfare in DRC, Kabila and other leaders, the AFC-M23 rebel group, or government corruption. Space for dissenting opinions and opposition voices is small and shrinking, with an environment characterized by the co-optation of media institutions and systematic intimidation of activists and journalists.
The regime has systematically, seriously, and unfairly repressed protests and gatherings. Attacks on the right to assembly in pre- and post-election periods are commonplace in the DRC, and the country has seen a marked deterioration in civil liberties in recent years due to crackdowns on protests and abuse by security forces. For example, in August 2023, the Congolese army killed at least 50 peaceful protestors and religious adherents in a demonstration against the UN Mission for the Stabilization of the DRC (MONUSCO) and other foreign forces. Further, police violently dispersed a demonstration led by opposition parties in May 2023 to protest high living costs and insecurity. In this incident, state forces used tear gas and beat citizens, seriously injuring at least 30 people. In that same month, police also prevented opposition figures Katumbi and Fayulu from conducting rallies in Kongo Central Province and at CENI headquarters in Kinshasa. These developments point to a systemic strategy of repression to silence the voices of dissent to the regime.
Under President Tshisekedi, the regime has systematically and seriously intimidated and obstructed the work of independent, dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public. The central regime has carried out arbitrary arrests, threats, suspensions, and physical violence against those perceived as critics. Journalists face threats of enforced disappearance and arrest, particularly when reporting on the conflict in the east of the country, political assassinations, or government corruption. Notable cases of attacks on journalists include the arrest of Stanis Tshiamala in September 2023 and Steve Wembi in October 2022. Radio journalist Jessy Kabasele was also suspended in July 2024 due to an interview with Koffi Olomide in which he criticized the army’s handling of the M23 conflict. Civil society organizations, human rights defenders, and activists have faced similar repression. Government critics routinely risk threats of imprisonment or death and are often forced to go into hiding. Civil society leaders Jack Sinzahera of Amka Congo and Gloire Saasita of Generation Positive were arrested and held without charge for weeks in August 2024. While President Tshisekedi implemented early reforms such as prisoner releases in 2019, his second term in office has been characterized by greater repression of the media and civil society.
The National Cyberdefense Council (CNC), an agency under the President’s Office that was formalized in 2023, has become a recent tool of repression. On paper, the council was created to coordinate cyberdefense and combat cybercrime; however, in practice, it has been misused to target dissenters and political opponents. Jean-Claude Bukasa, a close ally of President Tshisekedi, leads the organization, and since its inception, it has operated with broad powers and little judicial oversight. Examples of abuse include targeting close allies of former president Kabila: Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary (permanent secretary of Kabila’s party, PPRD), Aubin Minaku (former president of the National Assembly), and Theophile Mbemba (former Chief of Staff to Kabila). Journalist Willy-Albert Kande was also detained in the CNC offices for three days in June 2025 after raising concerns on-air about the sanitary conditions at a national football stadium. The human rights group Justicia ASBL has accused CNC of abducting over 10,000 people and detaining them in inhumane conditions.
The regime has systematically and heavily manipulated media coverage in its favor. The regime controls state media outlets and uses the media regulatory agency, the Higher Council for Broadcasting and Communication (CSAC), to censor critical coverage in private media outlets. Through censorship, self-censorship, and co-option, it maintains pressure on media such that official narratives are favored and dissenting opinions are suppressed. Media coverage is particularly subject to repressive constraints with regard to Kabila and other leaders of the AFC-M23 rebel coalition and their activities, Rwandan hybrid warfare in DRC, and political assassinations of political opponents. One such example is that in June 2025, CSAC imposed a 90-day nationwide ban on media coverage of the formerly exiled President Kabila or his party, applicable to both public and private media outlets. In January of the same year, Al Jazeera’s broadcasts were suspended for 90 days following an interview with M23 leader Bertrand Bisimwa. Another abuse of power occurred in February 2024 when CSAC similarly prohibited media outlets from broadcasting debates on activities of the Congolese army without including an “expert” (i.e., a government-aligned figure).
In the DRC, the state uses intimidation and propaganda to keep an iron grip on information output, all in an effort to consolidate power. The mechanisms through which the media space is captured are manifold. State broadcaster Congolese National Radio and Television (RTNC) is directly controlled by the Ministry of Communication, naturally prioritizing Tshisekedi’s activities and anti-opposition narratives. Further, CSAC has been strategically stacked with loyalists appointed by Tshisekedi’s coalition. Intimidation is also used to force compliance, often through lawfare and incommunicado detentions of dissenters. The state also preferentially allocates resources to regime-friendly outlets, primarily through state advertising and tax breaks, creating an environment in which propagandists are rewarded.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. With its supermajority in the legislature and presidential powers of appointment of top judges, Tshisekedi and his ruling USN coalition have negated the separation of powers and turned the other two branches of government into subordinate extensions of a disproportionately powerful executive. With political capture of institutions and an endemic culture of rent-seeking patronage and cross-carpeting, corruption and impunity ensure the lack of constraints on government power.
Courts have systematically and unfairly failed to check the regime’s attempts to significantly undermine electoral competition or make the electoral process significantly skewed in its favor. Despite significant reports of electoral fraud in the 2023 election, the Constitutional Court upheld Tshisekedi’s disputed victory after rejecting multiple opposition petitions. They dismissed the petitions as “unsubstantiated” despite evidence gathered by both domestic observers and international groups. The 2018, 2011, and 2006 national elections showed a similar pattern in which the Court dismissed valid critiques of electoral processes. In the DRC, there remains a consistent pattern of judicial alignment with the executive and a lack of scrutiny on electoral matters.
Courts have systematically enabled the regime’s attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. Consistently, the judiciary has failed to independently check executive and security force repression of opposition figures. Courts often uphold politically-motivated charges and rarely challenge arbitrary arrests and excessive use of force by police or the military. In September 2023, journalist Stanis Tshiamala was arrested for “spreading false information” and held in pre-trial detention for months in what was seen as a politically-motivated ruling to suppress dissent. Former presidential candidate Seth Kikuni was also the subject of judicial harassment through conviction by a Kinshasa court of “spreading false rumors” and “inciting civil disobedience.” After repeated detentions, which groups such as Human Rights Watch have denounced as politically motivated prosecutions, Kikuni eventually went into exile. Cases such as those involving Tshiamala, Kikuni, and others illustrate how courts have been used in concrete ways to discipline dissent. These individuals were subjected to delayed hearings, procedural irregularities, and unfair pre-trial detentions, which has entrenched a pattern of selective accountability within the court system.
Judicial, legislative, or executive institutions have systematically, frequently, and unfairly failed to hold regime officials accountable. The legislative and judicial branches in DRC are largely captured by the executive. President Tshisekedi appointed loyalists in the apex courts, including the Constitutional Court, following the precedent set by former presidents Kabila and Mobutu. The Governing Council of the Judiciary (CSM), which proposes judicial appointments to the President, was also reformed early in Tshisekedi’s tenure to oust his predecessor’s hand-picked judges. The judiciary has repeatedly failed to hold President Tshisekedi and his administration accountable, including in 2021 when the apex courts sided with the controversial decision to impose a state of emergency in Ituri and North Kivu, ultimately resulting in martial law and widespread human rights abuses.
The regime has systematically directed cases to separate, regime-controlled courts. An emerging phenomenon is the use of military courts to target former president Joseph Kabila and his allies, as military courts face fewer bureaucratic hurdles and can reach verdicts more quickly. The most high-profile example was the 2025 Kinshasa high military tribunal trial of Kabila, in which the former president was charged in absentia with crimes against humanity, corruption, insurrection, and support for M23. Kabila was sentenced to death and ordered to pay billions in damages to the country. The trial lacked impartiality, and critics decried the lack of evidence presented in court. The military tribunal also sentenced other Kabila allies, such as Corneille Nangaa, the founder of Alliance du Fleuve Congo (AFC), and John Numbi, a former army inspector general.
HRF classifies the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
The DRC is a unitary state with a semi-presidential political system with a bicameral parliament. The Head of State, Felix Tshisekedi, came to power in the fraudulent December 2018 elections and secured re-election in the flawed and discredited 2023 elections. Since gaining independence from Belgium in 1960, the DRC has experienced recurrent internal political turmoil and the effects of global and regional powers’ competition over its immense geostrategic natural resources. The giant country the size of Western Europe has thus experienced 32 years of dictatorship—including a quarter of a century of totalitarian rule—cyclical rebellions, forceful power grabs, political assassinations, and the two bloodiest wars since World War II. Since the restoration of a constitutional, multi-party system in 2006, the country has experienced four flawed elections and its first-ever peaceful handover of power, but also degenerating violent instability and humanitarian catastrophes in the mineral-rich east. With an entrenched political culture of patronage, cross-carpeting, corruption, and impunity, successive regimes have followed authoritarian power consolidation via the capture of government institutions and repression. Since January 2025, the central government has lost authority over large swaths of North Kivu and South Kivu–including the two largest eastern DRC cities of Goma and Bukavu–as a result of a military offensive by M23 rebels and Rwandan troops.
National elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. The regime systematically curtails the opposition’s ability to campaign, engages in significant voting irregularities or electoral fraud, and undermines electoral oversight.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. The regime systematically targets political opponents, independent journalists, and critics through arbitrary arrests and lawfare, and violently suppresses protests. Through the capture of the media regulatory institutions and the national public broadcaster, co-option of private news outlets, and crackdown on independent journalists, the regime constrains the press, and fear of retribution causes journalists to self-censor media outlets.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. With its supermajority in the legislature and extensive presidential powers of appointment of top judges, Tshisekedi’s ruling Sacred Union of the Nation (USN) coalition has negated the separation of powers and turned the other two branches of government into subordinate extensions of a disproportionately powerful executive. The courts routinely rule in favor of the executive.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, national elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win.
Since the 2006 general elections–the first multi-party polls since 1965—the country has held four flawed electoral cycles with steadily plummeting turnout. Pre-election repression against the opposition, electoral malfeasance, and post-election legal challenges before the courts have discredited the outcomes of all four presidential polls. The 2023 presidential election, in which Tshisekedi claimed 73% of the vote with a 55-point margin over his most serious opponent, Moise Katumbi, followed the pattern of the previous four elections with pre-election repression against the opposition, significant fraud and manipulation, deliberate voter suppression, intimidation and disenfranchisement, and legal challenges to the official results ultimately dismissed by the country’s highest court.
The regime has systematically, unfairly, and significantly hindered real, mainstream opposition parties’ or candidates’ electoral campaigns. Its most serious political opponents and their allies are often the targets of efforts to legally disqualify them from the ballot, intimidation, restrictions on movement, and other forms of obstruction of their campaigns. Particularly in pre-election periods, Congolese authorities engage in repression through arresting key advisors and opposition spokespeople, preventing gatherings, and disrupting campaigns. In 2023, opposition leader Moise Katumbi of Together for the Republic was identified as a top challenger to Tshisekedi ahead of the polls. His campaign experienced repression through authorities banning their political rallies in Kongo-Central and experiencing disruptions and police interference at events. Katumbi’s party spokesman was brutally murdered, found dead in his car in Kinshasa, in July 2023. Although the official report ruled the death a suicide, Katumbi has maintained that the death was politically motivated and a form of retribution by the state. It also occurred in the context of a broader crackdown on Katumbi’s circle ahead of the 2023 presidential election. Salomon Kalonda, Katumbi’s special advisor, was detained at a military prison and accused of treason. He was later additionally formally charged with inciting military disloyalty, receiving classified documents, and supporting AFC-M23’s efforts to overthrow the government, and authorities raided both Kalonda and Katumbi’s residences. There were also efforts in 2021 and 2023 to disqualify Katumbi from the presidential ballot by introducing a bill to restrict candidacy to only individuals with two Congolese parents, as well as a petition to the Constitutional Court, which argued that Katumbi was not a Congolese national but rather held Italian citizenship. Furthermore, the candidate widely believed to have rightfully won the 2018 election—Martin Fayulu—faced convoy attacks in both 2018 and 2023. In the earlier case, police used live ammunition to disperse supporters, whereas the latter involved civilian supporters of the ruling party. Katumbi and Fayulu have regularly been the targets of systematic interference in their campaigns as a means to intimidate and tilt the playing field in favor of the regime.
The regime has engaged in systematic, significant voting irregularities or electoral fraud. While elections do take place every five years, a pattern has emerged in the DRC wherein the outcome is heavily manipulated by the incumbent party. In 2018, as the national election results began to trickle in and it became clear that President Kabila’s hand-picked successor Shadary would not win, Kabila approached Tshisekedi’s camp to broker a deal. While independent tallies reported opposition candidate Martin Fayulu as the clear winner (garnering over 60% of the vote in some analyses), the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), headed by a Kabila ally, released official results declaring Felix Tshisekedi the victor at 38% vote share. Independent investigations suggest that Kabila manipulated the election results to favor Tshisekedi, the candidate he presumed would allow him to share power behind the scenes, rather than allowing a true opposition victory.
Similarly, in 2023, various tactics were used to skew results in favor of incumbent President Tshisekedi. Reports highlighted systematic abuses such as the placement of voting machines in some candidates’ private residences, deliberate voter disenfranchisement, intimidation and suppression, vote-buying, unsealed ballot boxes, and illegal extensions of voting, and these phenomena occurred most prominently in regions characterized by greater opposition support. In the end, a Tshisekedi ally chairing the CENI declared the latter victorious without allowing an independent audit of the voter registry. Opposition candidates such as Moise Katumbi and Martin Fayulu, the National Episcopal Conference of the Congo (CENCO), various other independent groups, and the Carter Center, a US-based organization, all decried the elections as a sham and fraught with fraud.
The regime has systematically and seriously undermined independent electoral oversight. The majority party in the legislature and the President have ascendency in determining the composition of the CENI, and Tshisekedi and his USN coalition-dominated legislature have carried on a longstanding practice of stacking the Commission with allies. In October 2021, Tshisekedi appointed his close ally Denis Kadima as CENI chair despite public outcry from the opposition and both the influential Catholic and Protestant churches. Tshisekedi further reformed the composition of the Commission in 2021, allocating seats in a way that offered a majority to the ruling coalition rather than civil society members. This move was seen as an affront to the independence of the institution, extending the regime’s influence and increasing perceptions that CENI is aligned with the executive.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. Freedom of speech and the right to protest are severely restricted, particularly with regard to sensitive topics such as the unsolved assassinations of opposition figures, Rwandan hybrid warfare in DRC, Kabila and other leaders, the AFC-M23 rebel group, or government corruption. Space for dissenting opinions and opposition voices is small and shrinking, with an environment characterized by the co-optation of media institutions and systematic intimidation of activists and journalists.
The regime has systematically, seriously, and unfairly repressed protests and gatherings. Attacks on the right to assembly in pre- and post-election periods are commonplace in the DRC, and the country has seen a marked deterioration in civil liberties in recent years due to crackdowns on protests and abuse by security forces. For example, in August 2023, the Congolese army killed at least 50 peaceful protestors and religious adherents in a demonstration against the UN Mission for the Stabilization of the DRC (MONUSCO) and other foreign forces. Further, police violently dispersed a demonstration led by opposition parties in May 2023 to protest high living costs and insecurity. In this incident, state forces used tear gas and beat citizens, seriously injuring at least 30 people. In that same month, police also prevented opposition figures Katumbi and Fayulu from conducting rallies in Kongo Central Province and at CENI headquarters in Kinshasa. These developments point to a systemic strategy of repression to silence the voices of dissent to the regime.
Under President Tshisekedi, the regime has systematically and seriously intimidated and obstructed the work of independent, dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public. The central regime has carried out arbitrary arrests, threats, suspensions, and physical violence against those perceived as critics. Journalists face threats of enforced disappearance and arrest, particularly when reporting on the conflict in the east of the country, political assassinations, or government corruption. Notable cases of attacks on journalists include the arrest of Stanis Tshiamala in September 2023 and Steve Wembi in October 2022. Radio journalist Jessy Kabasele was also suspended in July 2024 due to an interview with Koffi Olomide in which he criticized the army’s handling of the M23 conflict. Civil society organizations, human rights defenders, and activists have faced similar repression. Government critics routinely risk threats of imprisonment or death and are often forced to go into hiding. Civil society leaders Jack Sinzahera of Amka Congo and Gloire Saasita of Generation Positive were arrested and held without charge for weeks in August 2024. While President Tshisekedi implemented early reforms such as prisoner releases in 2019, his second term in office has been characterized by greater repression of the media and civil society.
The National Cyberdefense Council (CNC), an agency under the President’s Office that was formalized in 2023, has become a recent tool of repression. On paper, the council was created to coordinate cyberdefense and combat cybercrime; however, in practice, it has been misused to target dissenters and political opponents. Jean-Claude Bukasa, a close ally of President Tshisekedi, leads the organization, and since its inception, it has operated with broad powers and little judicial oversight. Examples of abuse include targeting close allies of former president Kabila: Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary (permanent secretary of Kabila’s party, PPRD), Aubin Minaku (former president of the National Assembly), and Theophile Mbemba (former Chief of Staff to Kabila). Journalist Willy-Albert Kande was also detained in the CNC offices for three days in June 2025 after raising concerns on-air about the sanitary conditions at a national football stadium. The human rights group Justicia ASBL has accused CNC of abducting over 10,000 people and detaining them in inhumane conditions.
The regime has systematically and heavily manipulated media coverage in its favor. The regime controls state media outlets and uses the media regulatory agency, the Higher Council for Broadcasting and Communication (CSAC), to censor critical coverage in private media outlets. Through censorship, self-censorship, and co-option, it maintains pressure on media such that official narratives are favored and dissenting opinions are suppressed. Media coverage is particularly subject to repressive constraints with regard to Kabila and other leaders of the AFC-M23 rebel coalition and their activities, Rwandan hybrid warfare in DRC, and political assassinations of political opponents. One such example is that in June 2025, CSAC imposed a 90-day nationwide ban on media coverage of the formerly exiled President Kabila or his party, applicable to both public and private media outlets. In January of the same year, Al Jazeera’s broadcasts were suspended for 90 days following an interview with M23 leader Bertrand Bisimwa. Another abuse of power occurred in February 2024 when CSAC similarly prohibited media outlets from broadcasting debates on activities of the Congolese army without including an “expert” (i.e., a government-aligned figure).
In the DRC, the state uses intimidation and propaganda to keep an iron grip on information output, all in an effort to consolidate power. The mechanisms through which the media space is captured are manifold. State broadcaster Congolese National Radio and Television (RTNC) is directly controlled by the Ministry of Communication, naturally prioritizing Tshisekedi’s activities and anti-opposition narratives. Further, CSAC has been strategically stacked with loyalists appointed by Tshisekedi’s coalition. Intimidation is also used to force compliance, often through lawfare and incommunicado detentions of dissenters. The state also preferentially allocates resources to regime-friendly outlets, primarily through state advertising and tax breaks, creating an environment in which propagandists are rewarded.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. With its supermajority in the legislature and presidential powers of appointment of top judges, Tshisekedi and his ruling USN coalition have negated the separation of powers and turned the other two branches of government into subordinate extensions of a disproportionately powerful executive. With political capture of institutions and an endemic culture of rent-seeking patronage and cross-carpeting, corruption and impunity ensure the lack of constraints on government power.
Courts have systematically and unfairly failed to check the regime’s attempts to significantly undermine electoral competition or make the electoral process significantly skewed in its favor. Despite significant reports of electoral fraud in the 2023 election, the Constitutional Court upheld Tshisekedi’s disputed victory after rejecting multiple opposition petitions. They dismissed the petitions as “unsubstantiated” despite evidence gathered by both domestic observers and international groups. The 2018, 2011, and 2006 national elections showed a similar pattern in which the Court dismissed valid critiques of electoral processes. In the DRC, there remains a consistent pattern of judicial alignment with the executive and a lack of scrutiny on electoral matters.
Courts have systematically enabled the regime’s attempts to repress criticism or retaliate against those who express open opposition to its most prominent, widely publicized policies. Consistently, the judiciary has failed to independently check executive and security force repression of opposition figures. Courts often uphold politically-motivated charges and rarely challenge arbitrary arrests and excessive use of force by police or the military. In September 2023, journalist Stanis Tshiamala was arrested for “spreading false information” and held in pre-trial detention for months in what was seen as a politically-motivated ruling to suppress dissent. Former presidential candidate Seth Kikuni was also the subject of judicial harassment through conviction by a Kinshasa court of “spreading false rumors” and “inciting civil disobedience.” After repeated detentions, which groups such as Human Rights Watch have denounced as politically motivated prosecutions, Kikuni eventually went into exile. Cases such as those involving Tshiamala, Kikuni, and others illustrate how courts have been used in concrete ways to discipline dissent. These individuals were subjected to delayed hearings, procedural irregularities, and unfair pre-trial detentions, which has entrenched a pattern of selective accountability within the court system.
Judicial, legislative, or executive institutions have systematically, frequently, and unfairly failed to hold regime officials accountable. The legislative and judicial branches in DRC are largely captured by the executive. President Tshisekedi appointed loyalists in the apex courts, including the Constitutional Court, following the precedent set by former presidents Kabila and Mobutu. The Governing Council of the Judiciary (CSM), which proposes judicial appointments to the President, was also reformed early in Tshisekedi’s tenure to oust his predecessor’s hand-picked judges. The judiciary has repeatedly failed to hold President Tshisekedi and his administration accountable, including in 2021 when the apex courts sided with the controversial decision to impose a state of emergency in Ituri and North Kivu, ultimately resulting in martial law and widespread human rights abuses.
The regime has systematically directed cases to separate, regime-controlled courts. An emerging phenomenon is the use of military courts to target former president Joseph Kabila and his allies, as military courts face fewer bureaucratic hurdles and can reach verdicts more quickly. The most high-profile example was the 2025 Kinshasa high military tribunal trial of Kabila, in which the former president was charged in absentia with crimes against humanity, corruption, insurrection, and support for M23. Kabila was sentenced to death and ordered to pay billions in damages to the country. The trial lacked impartiality, and critics decried the lack of evidence presented in court. The military tribunal also sentenced other Kabila allies, such as Corneille Nangaa, the founder of Alliance du Fleuve Congo (AFC), and John Numbi, a former army inspector general.
