Log in
At 56, Tchang, as he is affectionately known in Niger, arrested at his home a year ago, has been involved in every struggle. His friends remember the activist he was even in high school and later as a philosophy student in the early 1990s, caught up in the wave of the student movement that would overthrow, not without the loss of life, the heirs of General Seyni Kountché and his regime of exception. A revolutionary, a Marxist, deeply attached to the Kanuri community in the far east of Niger, where he was born, Moussa Tchangari participated in the National Conference that shattered the one-party system, giving birth to multiparty politics and democracy. Students were present in large numbers. But very quickly, Tchangari devoted himself to human rights, founding in 1991, with others, the Nigerien Association for the Defense of Human Rights (ANDDH) which played a decisive role in the fight for public freedoms until the end of the 2000s.
After a career as a journalist marked by a brilliant and erudite writing style, he created his own organization in 1994, a hybrid of popular education and activist training: Alternative Espace Citoyens. Several figures in the media, civil society, and even politics emerged from this melting pot, where community radio stations, films, newspapers, and tireless civic education programs flourished.
This persistent and uncompromising work earned Tchangari several arrests and prison sentences under various regimes and throughout his various activism: against the high cost of living in 2005, against arbitrary arrests in villages in the east of the country plagued by Boko Haram in 2015, against the 2018 budget law, and, after the coup that overthrew Mohamed Bazoum on July 26, 2023, against the new military leaders and the threat they posed to the country. This episode marked a break with some of his former comrades-in-arms who, for their part, applauded the fall of the socialist regime that had been in power since 2011.
On December 3, 2025, at the headquarters of Alternative Espace Citoyens, a day of solidarity and mobilization was organized to "celebrate the integrity of a man whose physical absence never erased his moral presence", in the words of activist Kaka Touda. Arrested a year ago upon returning from a trip abroad, Moussa Tchangari is being held in Filingué prison and is being prosecuted for advocating terrorism, conspiracy against the authority of the state, criminal association, and collusion with an enemy foreign power. These accusations elicit a wry smile from those who followed his anti-imperialist attacks, long before the coup, against France, its uranium mining, and its military intervention. "Knowing him and knowing his commitments, we know full well that he cannot go against the interests of Niger", one of the participants remarked, exasperated. Moussa Tchangari’s temperament, longevity, and extensive network have earned him strong support abroad. However, beyond the unique circumstances of this extraordinary individual, one participant at the meeting lamented a dramatic shrinking of civic space and an unprecedented number of journalists’ arrests since the liberalization of the sector in 1991.
Source: https://afriquexxi.info/Niger-Un-an-apres-son-arrestation-Moussa-Tchangari-toujours-en-prison
Photo Credit: Alternative Espace Citoyens
