Government urged to free human rights detainees

The Federation internationale des Ligues de Droits de l’Homme (FIDH) and the Organisation mondiale contre la Torture (OMCT) have appealed to the Togolese government to release four human rights campaigners. The appeal was made by The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint FIDH/OMCT programme. The four detainees are Nestor Tengue, Francois Gayibor and Mr Brice Santanna of the Association togolaise pour la Defense et la Promotion des Droits de l’Homme (ATDPDH) and Antoine Koffi Nadjombe of the Amnesty International (AI)’s Togo chapter. They are accused of providing Amnesty with information on human rights violations in Togo which the government has denied. Nadjombe’s wife was also arrested but has since been released. According to the Observatory, Arsene Boulovi and Benjamin Adjoh, president and treasurer of the Togo chapter of Action for Christians Against Torture (ACAT), were in hiding after a failed attempt to arrest them in connection with the AI report, released in early May. The report alleged that following presidential elections in June 1998, members of the security forces and paramilitary police killed hundreds of people and dumped many of the bodies into the sea, from where they were washed up on beaches in Togo and Benin. The government is suing Amnesty for defamation. Kofimessa Devotsou, president of the Ligue togolaise de droits de l’homme, who is acting as legal representative for three of the four detainees, told IRIN that his clients would plead that they had provided no information to AI. Devotsou said he had submitted the necessary legal paperwork to the judge but did not yet know when the trial would begin. Meanwhile, Jacques Verges, the French lawyer representing Togo’s government in the lawsuit against AI, arrived on Sunday in Lome, according to news organisations, which quoted him as describing AI’s report as a “provocation against the Togolese state”.