The Guinean authorities must immediately carry out an impartial, independent and transparent investigation into the enforced disappearance of civil society activists Oumar Sylla and Mamadou Billo Bah, who have now been missing for more than seven weeks, said Amnesty International and 17 Guinean human rights organizations on the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
Since the arrest of the two National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (FNDC) activists on 9 July, their fate and whereabouts remain unknown, amid a worsening crackdown on dissident voices. Mohammed Cissé, a fellow FNDC activist who was arrested with the pair but released the day after has told Amnesty International that they were taken by security forces and subjected to acts of torture.
“We call on the Guinean authorities to shed full light on the circumstances of these enforced disappearances, as well as on information about torture and other forms of ill-treatment. The findings of this investigation must be made public and all those suspected of being criminally responsible must be brought to justice in fair trials before ordinary civilian courts. The unbearable uncertainty inflicted on the relatives of the activists as to their fate must end”, said the human rights organizations.
“Guinea is party to most of the international legal instruments relating to human rights, in particular the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The authorities therefore have an obligation to protect, respect and ensure respect for the human rights of all citizens. Enforced disappearances constitute a crime under international law. We call on the Guinean authorities to follow the example of other states in West and Central Africa by ratifying, without making any reservation, the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.”
Oumar Sylla, national coordinator of the FNDC, was arrested on the evening of 9 July at his home along with Mamadou Billo Bah, head of the collective’s branches and mobilization, and Mohamed Cissé, another member of the organization. According to Mohamed Cissé, they were arrested by people he identified as gendarmes and then detained by members of the special forces on the island of Kassa, off the coast of the capital. He was violently beaten for hours and alleges that all three were subjected to acts of torture during interrogation. Once released, Mohammed Cisse suffered multiple injuries and had to be hospitalised for several days.
In a communique issued on 17 July, the public prosecutor’s office of the Conakry Court of Appeal stated that the activists had not been arrested by the authorities and that they were not being held in any of the country’s prisons, claiming that they had been abducted. Since then, the authorities have remained silent, and no investigation has been opened.
‘The enforced disappearances of Oumar Sylla, known as Foniké Menguè, and Mamadou Billo Bah are outrageous. The authorities cannot shirk their responsibility to conduct a serious investigation into what could constitute an ongoing crime under international law in our country,’ said Halimatou Camara, one of the two activists’ lawyers.
Background
Oumar Sylla, also known as Foniké Menguè, is the national coordinator of the FNDC, a civil society movement critical of the transitional military authorities, which was dissolved by the government in 2022 and continues to advocate a return to civilian rule.
On 9 July, the day of his arrest, he had called on social networks for people to wear red clothes on 11 July to ‘protest against the closure of the media and the high cost of living, particularly electricity shortages and all the blunders of the transition’.
In recent years, Oumar Sylla and Mamadou Billo Bah have been arbitrarily detained several times for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Oumar Sylla was arbitrarily detained under the Alpha Condé regime, then after the National Rally Committee for Development (CRND) came to power, from July 2022 to May 2023. Mamadou Billo Bah was also detained from January 2023 to May 2023.
For several months now, the Guinean authorities have been stepping up their crackdown on peaceful dissent, with the suspension of media outlets, restrictions on internet access and the brutal repression of demonstrations, including the killing of at least 47 people during protests between September 2021 and April 2024 according to Amnesty International’s latest report.
Signatories
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Amnesty International.
