AI calls for release of political prisoners

Amnesty International (AI) on Tuesday urged the government of Equatorial Guinea to release all prisoners of conscience. In the meantime, AI called on the government in Malabo to improve the detainees’ prison conditions and allow international humanitarian organizations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, access to them. AI said political opponents of the government of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo in Equatorial Guinea were still being subjected to widespread harassment. Three activists of the not-yet-legalized Fuerza Demócrata Republicana (FDR - Republican Democratic Force)- Mariano Oyono Ndong, Carmelo Biko Ngua and Antonio Engonga Bibang - who were arrested in June remain in Bata prison without charge or trial following a crackdown on peaceful political activists, AI said. They were detained in the town of Mongomo, apparently for holding an unauthorised meeting, and are among at least 90 opposition party activists who have been held for short periods since the beginning of the year, it added. Amnesty also said it was “very concerned about the appalling prison conditions in which 80 members of the Bubi ethnic group continue to be held after being sentenced in June 1998 by a military court after an unfair trial”.