Mali returns to civilian rule

Mali returned to civilian rule yesterday when former parliament speaker Dioncounda Traore took over as Mali's interim president after leaders of last month’s coup stepped down.

He promised to hold elections and fight rebels who have declared an independent country in the north of Mali.

Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is reporting civilians have been killed, robbed, raped and forced to flee the rebel-controlled areas of the country.

"There have been reports of women who are not veiled being threatened and intimidated, and reports that people who are not Muslims being targeted and killed by extremist religious groups and that’s also extremely worrying”said Rupert Colville, the spokesperson for the UN Human Rights Office.

“There does seem some human rights violations took place in Bamako the capital, and these included arrests without proper warrants or legal processes, conditions of detention that were not good and also efforts to suppress the freedom of expression,” he continued. “We hope that there will quickly be a reestablishment of constitutional order in the country as a whole and then they will be able to deal with the north and also deal with the long term grievances that have fed the uprising in the north."

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