A/HRC/10/58 page 9 B. Increasing political repression and related human rights violations 25. Two years after presidential, national and provincial elections, a climate of intimidation has expanded and seriously hampers any form of critical dialogue, political tolerance or free expression. More than 100 members of the politico-religious movement BDK in Bas-Congo died in February and March 2008 as a result of unwarranted and excessive use of force and in some cases arbitrary executions by the PNC. The PNC operation was launched to address increasing incidents of violence, including killings, by BDK members and serious cases of usurpation of state power. In addition to the massacre of BDK members, state security forces have been increasingly implicated in a climate of impunity in politically-motivated human rights violations against human rights defenders, journalists and members of opposition parties. Most notably, several members of the Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC) of former Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba have been targets of political repression. 26. Throughout May 2008, several persons from Equateur - Bemba’s home province - were detained by various branches of the security forces (the Garde républicaine, or Republican Guard, the Special Services Branch of the PNC, and Military Intelligence) following a wave of arrests. Most of them were former officers of Jean-Pierre Bemba’s security detail (the DPP), FARDC and PNC officers. The exact number of persons arrested remains unknown. Some of the arrests have been officially acknowledged by the authorities. However, despite several attempts, the security services have declined to provide MONUC with information on their status and whereabouts. On 1 September 2008, 13 of the officers arrested in May 2008 were transferred to the Centre pénitentiare et de reeducation de Kinshasa (CPRK), the city’s main prison. Similarly, since October 2008, dozens of new cases of arbitrary detention of persons affiliated with the MCL were reported. Most of these are being held at the PNC headquarters in Kinshasa, known as Kin Mazière, to which the UNJHRO has been denied access despite MONUC’s mandate. In late December 2008, 46 of the prisoners were transferred to the CPRK. The majority of them were allegedly tortured and submitted to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. 27. Several persons who were arrested due to their ethnicity or perceived affiliation to the CNDP are also detained in Kinshasa. Between 9 December 2007 and 11 January 2008, 79 persons, including 75 civilians - of whom 31 were minors - commonly referred to as “les Rwandais”, i.e. “the Rwandans”, were arrested by Military Intelligence in Goma and transferred to Military Intelligence and Agence nationale de renseignements (ANR) facilities in Kinshasa. The UNJHRO was not granted access to those of the detainees who were kept at Kin Mazière. The minors were released in April 2008 following sustained efforts by MONUC. 28. These political detainees added to the backlog of hundreds of political detainees including several groups arrested towards the end of the second Congolese war (2004) and after the March 2007 events in Kinshasa. Finally on 25 July 2008, a governmental commission comprising the Minister of Justice, the Deputy Minister for Human Rights, military and public prosecutors, and the penitentiary administration of the CPRK began a process of releasing more than 200 detainees belonging to the two above-mentioned categories that had been held illegally or in pre-trial detention at the CPRK.