Gen. Abdourahamane Tiani of Niger attends the Alliance of Sahel States second summit on security and development, in Bamako, Mali, December 23, 2025.
(Nairobi) – Niger’s military junta has entrenched authoritarian rule, dismantled democratic institutions, and intensified repression since seizing power three years ago, Human Rights Watch said today.
On July 26, 2023, Gen. Abdourahamane Tiani and other Nigerien army officers overthrew the elected government of President Mohamed Bazoum. Since then, the junta has consolidated sweeping and unchecked powers, systematically weakening institutions capable of holding the military authorities to account. In the past year, the military authorities have dissolved all political parties and several independent unions, suspended dozens of civil society groups, detained journalists under a broad cybercrime law, stripped political opponents of their nationality, criminalized consensual same-sex relations, announced Niger’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC), and prolonged the country’s political transition without any roadmap toward democratic elections.
“Three years after the coup, Niger’s junta has broadened its assault on human rights,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Sahel researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The military leaders have expanded their own authority while closing civic space and shutting off pathways to justice for victims.”
The junta continues to arbitrarily detain former President Bazoum, his wife, the former Interior Minister Hama Amadou Souley, and Moussa Tiangari, a prominent human rights defender. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, in opinions issued in February 2025 and May 2026, found that the detentions of both Bazoum and Tiangari were arbitrary, in violation of international human rights law, and called on authorities to release them.
In March, the junta
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