Police in Democratic Republic of Congo dispersed opposition protests in several cities on Tuesday against proposed constitutional changes that \u200bcritics say could allow President Felix Tshisekedi to seek a \u200cthird term, with Reuters witnesses reporting tear gas and warning shots in Kinshasa.<\/p>\n
The demonstrations were called by the opposition C64 coalition, linked to former presidential \u200bcandidates Martin Fayulu, Moise Katumbi and Delly Sesanga. A\u00a0previous protest\u00a0\u200borganised by C64 in the capital Kinshasa in June \u2060was violently dispersed by security forces.<\/p>\n
Several hundred people took part in \u200bthe protest in Kinshasa, according to two Reuters witnesses. In the \u200bcities of Lubumbashi and Uvira, protests were officially prohibited by local authorities but went ahead anyway and were quickly dispersed, two other witnesses said.<\/p>\n
The protest in \u200bKinshasa was authorised and began peacefully, but clashes broke out between \u200bprotesters and pro-government supporters. Both sides threw stones and brandished machetes, prompting the \u200cpolice \u2060intervention, two Reuters witnesses said.<\/p>\n
The protests come three weeks after Tshisekedi announced plans for a\u00a0national dialogue\u00a0bringing together opposition parties, civil society groups and religious leaders, but excluding rebels who control parts of \u200beastern Congo.<\/p>\n
He has presented \u200bthe dialogue \u2060as a way to address the country’s political challenges. Opposition parties and the powerful Catholic Church have \u200bcondemned proposed constitutional changes that could allow Tshisekedi \u200bto seek \u2060a third term.<\/p>\n
Congo’s constitution limits presidents to two five-year terms. Parliament\u00a0adopted a bill\u00a0in June allowing constitutional changes to be put to a \u2060referendum, \u200band members of Tshisekedi’s coalition have backed \u200bchanges that would allow him to remain in office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Police in Democratic Republic of Congo dispersed opposition protests in several cities on Tuesday against proposed constitutional changes that \u200bcritics say could allow President Felix Tshisekedi to seek a \u200cthird term, with Reuters witnesses reporting tear gas and warning shots in Kinshasa. The demonstrations were called by the opposition C64 coalition, linked to former presidential […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22030,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29,2362,33],"tags":[5466,3016,303],"class_list":["post-22029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-politics","tag-c64-coalition","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo-drc","tag-felix-tshisekedi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22031,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22029\/revisions\/22031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}