Nestor Nibitanga, former head of the Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detained Persons (APRODH), was arrested on 11 November 2017 and sentenced to five years' imprisonment on 13 August 2018 for ‘undermining state security’. The human rights defender was held for four years in Murembwe central prison in Rumonge, in south-western Burundi. He was finally released on 27 April 2021 under a presidential pardon after 4 years of arbitrary detention.