Guinea: questions after the death of two opponents in prison

Targeted UFDG members or supporters

Detained for “intentional assault and battery”, according to the Ministry of Justice, Mamadou Barry was a member of the UFDG party of Cellou Dalein Diallo, the main opponent of Alpha Condé. He was “an opposition activist”, without being “neither a figure nor a cadre,” Amnesty International official for West Africa told Agence France-Presse on Friday, January 22, Fabien Offner. “He was a young man who, like many in the protest districts, was arrested on the sidelines of sometimes violent demonstrations in reaction to the process which led Alpha Condé to remain in power and to the numerous serious violations” of human rights, a- he explained. Cellou Dalein Diallo deplored a death “for lack of care”. The Ministry of Justice spoke of “natural death linked to intestinal obstruction and bioclinic anemia”.

Questions about the conditions of detention

This death caused a lot of reaction, because, a month earlier, a member of the UFDG, Roger Bamba, also died in detention, before his trial. The government had cited the disease, his family speaking of poisoning and “state crime”. In any case, these deaths “highlight the dysfunctions of the prison system and the Guinean judicial system,” the European Union said in a statement Thursday. “Prison conditions are complicated, the central remand center in Conakry is designed for 250 to 300 detainees, and it houses more than 1,500, including more than a thousand in pre-trial detention. The living conditions are precarious, as well as the food of the detainees, the medical care. (…) These conditions are undoubtedly at the origin of the number of deaths of the opponents. The EU therefore calls on the Guinean authorities to remedy this situation and that justice can be fully exercised on the basis of independent investigations. ”

The United States also reacted, saying it was “gravely concerned” by the “targeting of the political opposition by the government,” their embassy in Conakry had previously said. For Washington, “the actions of the government and the death of two members of the opposition while in detention call into question Guinea’s commitment to the rule of law.” These deaths “are obviously not natural and result from serious violations of the fundamental principles of the UN relating to the treatment of detainees”, said Fabien Offner. At least 100 people died in detention in Guinea between 2015 and October 2019, he said.

Guinea has been for months in the grip of a deep crisis caused by the candidacy of current President Condé for a controversial third term. The protest, which has been harshly repressed several times, has killed dozens of people since October 2019. Alpha Condé was proclaimed winner in the first round of the presidential election by the Constitutional Court, despite doubts about the regularity of the vote. The weeks before and after the election saw the arrest of hundreds of opponents, according to Amnesty and Human Rights Watch. Two opponents arrested at the same time as Roger Bamba, in September, Souleymane Condé and Youssouf Diabaté, members of the FNDC, were sentenced in mid-January to one year in prison and a fine of 20 million Guinean francs, i.e. 1,600 euros, by the court of Dixinn, a district of Conakry. The prosecutor accused them of having called for the arrest of Alpha Condé and of having accused the power of murdering children, considering that these facts were “incitement to revolt and destabilization of the country”. The defendants denied having made such comments.