EU demands firm action against the government

Ahead of the European Union heads of state and government meeting in Spain on 21-22 June, EU parliamentarians have called for "utmost firmness" against the government of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in Equatorial Guinea for human rights violations. The parliamentarians met EU foreign ministers on Tuesday in Luxembourg to emphasize an urgent resolution passed on 13 June in Strasbourg, that condemned recent arrests of opposition leaders in Equatorial Guinea, an EU statement reported. They told the ministers the EU should propose to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to re-appoint a Special Rapporteur on Torture in Equatorial Guinea. EU member states, they added, should also closely monitor the situation in the country. " Days before the EU meeting and the G-8 in Canada on 26 June when G-8 leaders will assess proposals for the New Partnership for Africa's Development, [EU MPs] warn Nguema to honour his undertakings to the international community and the EU to initiate a genuine process of democratisation, call free elections and guarantee full respect for human rights," the statement added. The European Council and Commission should "show the utmost firmness in demanding that these undertakings be honoured, and urges both Institutions to apply the democracy clause set out in Articles 96 and 97 of the Cotonou Agreement unless a genuine process of democratisation is initiated," the parliamentarians said. The 13 June resolution said that since March, dozens of Nguema's opponents had been arbitrarily detained and condemned "the sentencing of 68 opposition leaders to terms ranging from 6 to 20 years [in] political trials that are unfair and in total disregard of the most fundamental rights of defense". Journalists covering the trials had faced insidious pressure on a daily basis, they added. Arrests of opposition leaders and some members of their families were detailed in the resolution. It said detainees were prevented from contacting their families or lawyers and subjected to brutal acts of torture and ill-treatment. The trial, the parliamentarians demanded, should be annulled and all the prisoners immediately released. "The hounding of members of the opposition parties and their families should cease, " it added. The EU parliament instructed its president to forward the resolution to the Council, the Commission, the co-Presidents of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, the OAU and the Government of Equatorial Guinea. Last week, Amnesty International and the Olof Palme Foundation called on authorities in Equatorial Guinea to conduct a new trial of the jailed opposition leaders within a reasonable time or release them. A court in the capital, Malabo, passed the sentences on 8 June following the trial of 144 defendants for reportedly plotting to topple Nguema. Some 76 defendants were freed. Among those jailed were Felipe Ondó Obiang (20 years), Guillermo Nguema Elá (14 years) of the opposition Fuerza Democratica Republicana and Placido Miko, secretary general of the main opposition party, Convergencia para la Democracia Social who received 14 years. An oil-rich country of 500,000 people, Equatorial Guinea is made up of two islands, Bioko and Annobon, and a stretch of mainland called Rio Muni. It is bordered by Cameroon, Gabon and the Gulf of Guinea.