"They held him there to send a message to the rest of us: be careful, or else." A human rights activist from the Central African Republic said this to Human Rights Watch after Crépin Mboli Goumba, a prominent political opponent, was arrested and sent to a police unit notorious for torture, executions, and shooting suspects on sight.
Instead of a police station in the city, Mboli Goumba was taken to the headquarters of the Central Office for the Repression of Banditry , a police unit created in the late 1990s to address a rise in banditry that developed a notorious reputation for abuse. In 2016, Human Rights Watch released aoutlining how members of the OCRB unlawfully executed at least 18 people and possibly more between April 2015 and March 2016.
Mboli Goumba was not mistreated at the OCRB, but if convicted, he could face up to 2 years in prison. He told Human Rights Watch that OCRB officials said his case was"tied to politics."