Amnesty slams EG justice
2004-05-26 11:34
Libreville - Political opponents of Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema are being arbitrarily arrested and held under harsh conditions, Amnesty International said in its annual report published on Wednesday.
"Several people suspected of being political opponents were arrested and detained without charge or trial," the London-based rights group said in its annual report on human rights around the world.
It gave examples of a Protestant pastor who was arrested by police during a church service in the capital Malabo in October and imprisoned, and the correspondent of Agence France-Presse (AFP) who was detained for a week, and only charged a month later.
The report also condemned the prison conditions endured by those convicted in 2002 over an alleged coup attempt by an outlawed political opposition group, the FDR.
"Their trial was unfair and their convictions based on statements made under torture," the report said. "Many appeared to be prisoners of conscience arrested solely because of their links with the FDR.
"At the beginning of 2003, they remained crammed together in small, dangerously overcrowded cells."
In April of that year, the conditions for the detainees improved, but "the authorities continued to pressure them to sign 'confessions' admitting guilt, asking the president for forgiveness and promising to join his ruling party," Amnesty said.
Two months later, the head of the FDR, Felipe Ondo Obiang, was transferred to another prison where "he was held in conditions that amounted to torture."
The report said the government of the tiny oil-rich central African nation did not respond to a recommendation from the UN Human Rights Commission that it establish independent human rights organisations in the country.
"In 2002 the Commission had ended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Equatorial Guinea, who monitored human rights in the country for over 20 years," said the Amnesty report, which covers the human rights situations in 155 countries during 2003.