ABIDJAN, June 3, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Four international human rights groups on Tuesday urged Niger's military regime to "immediately" release a civil society leader who has been jailed since December on charges including "conspiring with foreign powers".

Moussa Tchangari, 55, has been a vocal critic of the junta that seized power in a July 2023 coup.

He was taken into custody by armed agents at his home and held at an anti-terror unit after returning from a trip abroad on December 3, 2024.
He was accused of using social media to criticise a decision by the interior minister to revoke the licences of two humanitarian NGOs weeks before his arrest.

The rights groups which include Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) urged the junta to drop all charges against him.

"Moussa Tchangari is being detained solely for the exercise of his human rights," Marceau Sivieude, Amnesty International's regional director for West and Central Africa said in the statement.

"We are deeply concerned about the use of charges like these to silence critics of the government," he added.

Tchangari was transferred to Filingue prison, 200 kilometres (125 miles) northeast of Niamey in January.
 
He was charged with glorifying terrorism, endangering state security, criminal conspiracy and colluding with foreign powers.

The rights groups warned he could face the death penalty if he is convicted of colluding with enemy powers.

Since coming to power in a military coup in July 2023, Niger's military rulers have cracked down on the opposition and are accused of throwing critics in jail on trumped-up charges to silence them.

Tchangari, secretary-general of Niger's Alternative Citizen Spaces NGO, has in the past voiced his "total support" for ousted democratically elected president Mohamed Bazoum, confined by the army to his official residence since the coup.