Germain Rukuki has risked everything to campaign against torture in Burundi. Because of his human rights work, he is serving a 32-year prison sentence. He has never seen his three-year-old son. 

Germain’s wife, Emelyne recalls the moment when her husband was taken away. They were woken up in the early hours of the morning in July 2017 by heavy footsteps and banging on their door. Dozens of security officers stormed into their home. Emelyne was just weeks away from giving birth to their third child.

Germain was arrested in connection to his previous work at a local organization called Action by Christians for Abolition of Torture, which had been shut down for “tarnishing the image of the country.”

In April 2018, he was sentenced to 32 years in prison. He is currently in the overcrowded Ngozi Prison and is forced to share a cell with 120 inmates, with only two showers and two toilets.

Sign the petition and demand Germain's release.