🚀 go-pugleaf

This News Service is posted by the
International Secretariat of Amnesty International,
1 Easton Street, London WC1X 8DJ
(Tel +44-71-413-5500, Fax +44-71-956-1157)
********************



News Service 32/96
AI INDEX: AFR 24/02/96
20 FEBRUARY 1996


EQUATORIAL GUINEA: GOVERNMENT OPPONENTS ARRESTED AND TORTURED
IN RUN UP TO ELECTIONS

Government opponents are being arrested and tortured in the
run up to the first presidential elections since a multi-
party political system was introduced in Equatorial Guinea in
1992, Amnesty International said today.

      In an unexpected announcement in mid-January, thepresidential  
elections scheduled for June  were  brought
forward to 25 February. Since then,  repression has
intensified and scores of peaceful political opponents have
been arbitrarily arrested and briefly detained, especially in
the less accessible areas of the mainland region of Rio Muni.
Most have been subjected to ill-treatment or torture in
police custody.

      Amnesty International calls on the Equatorial Guinean
government to stop harassing political opponents, to
investigate all these incidents and to bring those
responsible for harassing, arresting and torturing peaceful
political activists to justice.

      Those particularly targeted are members of the
political parties comprised in the Plataforma de Oposicion
Conjunta (POC), Joint Opposition Platform -- which was
arbitrarily dissolved by the electoral commission -- and its
presidential candidate banned after one of  the political
parties in the POC decided to leave it in late January. The
POC continued to call for a boycott of the elections.
      Several members of the POC were arrested on 16 Feburary
by the security forces while they were attending French
lessons at the French Cultural Centre in Malabo. They include
Victorino Bolekia, the first democratically elected mayor of
Malabo, the Equatorial Guinean capital, and Santiago Obama,
Julian Ehapo, Celestino Bakale and Gaudencio Asumu, who are
all councillors. Victorino Bolekia was released some hours
later; the others two days later. All were severely beaten.
      Political activists have also been threatened with
arrest if they use foreign media to criticize the conduct of
the electoral campaign. Genoveva Nchama, a member of the
Union Popular  (UP) Popular Union party, was arrested in mid
January and held for several weeks after she criticized the
government on Radio Exterior de Espana. She was beaten while
in detention.

      Roman Catholic priests are also being targeted and have
been forbidden to travel outside their parishes to carry out
their duties. Several priests, including Father Jose Carlos
Esono,  have been arrested and tortured after being accused
of opposing President Obiang Nguema~s candidacy. There are
orders of arrest against several other priests.
ENDS\







**********

You may re-post this message onto other sources but if you do
then please tell us at AINS@GN.APC.ORG so that we can keep
track of what is happening to these items.

If you want more information concerning this item then please
contact the Amnesty International section office in your own
country. You may also send email to amnesty-info@igc.apc.org,
an automatic reply service.  A list of section contact
details is posted on the APC <ai.news> conference. If there
is not a section of Amnesty International in your country
then you should contact the International Secretariat in
London.END
**********
,