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Nairobi / AFP
A quiet protest movement is spreading in Burundi’s schools where hundreds of students have been suspended in recent weeks for defacing pictures of President Pierre Nkurunziza in textbooks.
Scribbling on the presidential portraits contained in government-issue study guides is seen as an act of silent resistance against a regime that clings to power despite more than a year of deadly protests.
Entire classes have been suspended for the defiant doodles, 11 have been charged with insulting the head of state and at least four were this week arrested and taken into police custody.
And yet the movement is growing as the government has struggled since early May to stem the acts of “incivility†that security ministry spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye blames on “political manipulationâ€.
The phenomenon has spread from the classroom to social media where users compete to lampoon Nkurunziza, mocking up images of him as a pirate, monarch or devil, or changing his name—which means “good news†in Kirundi—to Nkurumbi or “bad newsâ€. The ridicule infuriates Nkurunziza’s supporters, some of whom say the teasing amounts to treason. But for parents of the suspended school kids the arrests are an overreaction.