President Macron in Benin should demand the release of Reckya Madougou and Joel Aivo

On the eve of President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Benin, the Brussels-based NGO “Human Rights Without Frontiers” urged the French President to demand the release of two famous opposition leaders, Reckya Madougou and Joël Aivo, respectively sentenced to 20 years and 10 years in prison.

This month, Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF) has filed a report with the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR) for Benin, in which the organisation outlined its concerns over human rights abuses in Benin, with particular regard to the continued detention of opposition figures Reckya Madougou and Joël Aivo and the fact that they were not included in a list of 17 detainees due to be temporarily released after a 13 June 2022 meeting between President Patrice Talon and Thomas Boni Yayi, former President of Benin (2006-2016).

Reckya Madougou, from her Facebook account

The submission by HRWF included details about the case of Reckya Madougou who was sentenced at the end of 2021 to 20 years in prison for allegedly financing terrorism. She had been arrested in March 2021 accused of wiring thousands of dollars to a military officer for the purpose of killing unnamed authorities. Her candidacy had earlier been rejected by the electoral commission. HRWF went on to detail that Ms Madougou was the leader of the opposition party, Les Démocrates, and a presidential candidate. HRWF’s statement also described Ms Madougou’s civil society campaign — “Don’t touch my constitution” — that rallied against leaders seeking to extend their rule under the guise of constitutional reform. The movement spread across West Africa, gaining her a high profile.

RMTB, CC BY-SA 4.0, Joel Aivo – via Wikimedia Commons

The HRWF report to the UPR also gave details about the case of Joël Aivo and his December 2021 sentencing by the controversial Economic Crime and Terrorism Court (CRIET) to 10 years in prison for allegedly plotting against the state and laundering money.

HRWF explained in their submission that Mr Aivo is a law professor who challenged Talon in the 2021 election. He was held for eight months ahead of sentencing and pleaded not guilty to the charges of plotting against the state and money laundering.

HRWF has been monitoring the backsliding that has been taking place around human rights in Benin since 2016. “We were especially dismayed to see that Reckya Madougou and Joël Aivo were not on the June 2022 list of 17 detainees to be temporarily released. Ms Madougou and Mr Aivo should be fully released immediately. The persecution and detention of opposition figures has no place in a democracy and we are concerned for the welfare of these two politicians. President Macron must use his visit to Benin to demand that President Patrice Talon release them,” Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers told The European Times.

Pope Francis to visit Putin: Fuss in Moscow

On July 4, Pope Francis announced that he had the intention to visit Moscow and Kyiv as soon as possible. The head of the Vatican is regularly speaking to Ukrainian President Zelensky but would like to visit Putin before heading toward Kyiv. He believes that he might be the neutral agent that could convince Putin to put an end to the war.

On the other side of the line, in Moscow, there are different reactions to this idea. In the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, most are in favour of such a visit. Even in the Presidential administration, the reaction is pretty positive, and they view this controversial proposal favourably. But that is not the case within the FSB and the military. There, it is another story, and the intervention of Francis is viewed with at least suspicion and more usually with complete reluctance.

The main actor of this diplomatic move is the head of the World Union of Old Believers Leonid Sevastianov. Sevastianov has access to the Pope and is highly considered by him, and is the one whom the Supreme Pontiff would listen to when it comes to Russia. He is also the one lobbying the Presidential administration in Russia, pushing the idea that the Vatican is the only “neutral” State and then the only one in a position to act as a genuine mediator. Leonid Sevastianov is a strong Christian, who strongly believes that his spiritual mission is to do all in his power to put an end to the war.

But the fiercer opposition is coming from the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) Moscow Patriarch Kirill. Kirill is a strong supporter of the war, and justifies it, as several religious leaders in Russia, by the need of protecting the Christian world from the decadent West corrupted by cults and pagans, a message that is embraced by the Kremlin. His biggest fear is to see the Pope coming into his “territory”, preaching for peace. Even before the war, Kirill opposed the coming of the Vatican’s head, and the reason was then clear: Kirill is poorly considered by the believers, and barely attracts none (or very few) when he publicly appears. If Pope Francis would come to Russia, it’s likely that he attracts thousands of Christians to greet him, which would definitely undermine Kirill’s image in the country.

So Kirill is activating his network behind the scene to prevent Sevastianov to succeed, which is not without risk for the latter. Kirill is a former agent of the KGB and does not back off from dirty tricks to reach his goals. Sevastianov, who in fact is a former colleague of Kirill, and worked for years as the director of the St. Gregory the Theologian’s Charity Foundation, the biggest Orthodox Foundation in Moscow founded by Kirill and Metropolitan Hilarion, has recently declared that the support of the Moscow Patriarch to the war was to be considered as heresy, from a religious point of view. That’s no shy statement by far.

Hilarion himself, who was considered the number 2 of the ROC and was the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, has recently been demoted and sent to a small diocese in Hungary. There is no clear interpretation of this demotion: some say that Hilarion was opposed to the war and was punished for that. Others say that Kirill saw him as a threat as he was in a position to replace him as Patriarch, and some say that it is to have him in a better position to lobby for the ROC on the international scene after Kirill has been sanctioned by the UK, and barely avoided the EU sanctions thanks to the last-minute intervention of Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary.

Nevertheless, if Sevastianov’s diplomacy is a risky one for himself, it is also a steady one. Sevastianov has kept pushing for it since February, gained the support of the Supreme Pontiff and is now making progress in Moscow. Of course, even if he would succeed in getting Francis to Moscow, the big question is will it have any impact on Vladimir Putin? History will tell.