A/HRC/45/32 humanitarian assistance and 1.7 million are suffering from food insecurity. There are still about 100,000 persons internally displaced within their own country, the majority of whom are economically vulnerable women heads of household.11 III. Situation of human rights A. Main trends 28. In the context of the 2020 electoral process, which began in 2019, human rights violations took on a political dimension. Above all, they affected the right to security and freedom, but also the right to life and to be free from torture or ill-treatment, as well as civil liberties. The victims were mainly opposition political parties and their members, as well as journalists and independent media outlets. Violent clashes took place between members of the ruling party and the CNL, but there was no mass violence, specifically thanks to the international community’s, and the Commission’s, calls for calm and reminders that political leaders were responsible for the actions of their activists. 29. The perpetrators of these human rights violations were mainly members of the Imbonerakure and local administrative officials acting alone or jointly with the police or the National Intelligence Service. In cases of arbitrary arrest and detention, the responsibility lies mainly with police and National Intelligence Service officers, but also with members of the judiciary. 30. The vast majority of victims have been deprived of their right to an effective remedy due to the lack of independence and impartiality of the judiciary, which is still plagued by corruption. It has remained a tool of repression against the political opposition and has also been used to censor the press and human rights defenders. B. Violations in the context of the electoral process 1. Weakened political opposition 31. Opposition political parties and their members, mainly from the CNL, considered the main rival of the ruling party, suffered serious human rights violations, which intensified in the run-up to the elections. The aim was to weaken or even eliminate the chances of the CNL winning the election by preventing it from carrying out certain political activities, including campaigning, by intimidating its members, candidates and representatives in order to discourage them from carrying out their work and even by destroying the property and crops of some of its members. On election day, the aim was to prevent certain opponents from voting freely and in secret and to prevent representatives appointed by the opposition parties from observing the vote. Independent candidates and candidates from other parties were more rarely targeted, which attests to the organized and targeted nature of such acts. Right to liberty 32. Dozens of CNL activists, including those in positions of responsibility within the party as well as candidates for legislative and communal elections, were arbitrarily arrested and detained, for example for campaigning outside the officially designated days and hours while wearing the party’s cap or symbol, holding illegal meetings or seeking to “disrupt the election”. Some were arrested following physical clashes with members of the Imbonerakure attempting to disrupt election rallies. While most were released after a few days or weeks, some were sentenced to relatively heavy sentences of several years in prison after hastily arranged trials with expedited procedures, while others remained in pretrial detention. 33. The judiciary continued to be used often as a tool of political repression and to be biased in favour of the CNDD-FDD party. The Imbonerakure involved in clashes with 11 GE.20-10689 Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Burundi Situation Report, updated on 21 July 2020. Available at https://reports.unocha.org/en/country/burundi. 7