The Guinean Human Rights League denounced, this Sunday, November 30, dozens of “illegal and arbitrary” arrests following the military coup of November 26 in Guinea-Bissau, including five magistrates from the Public Ministry and those responsible for the National Elections Commission.
In an interview with Lusa over the phone from Lisbon, the president of the Guinean Human Rights League, Bubacar Turé, said that “five magistrates from the Public Ministry were arrested on the first day of this alleged coup d’état”, as well as the president of the National Elections Commission (CNE)Mpabi Kabi, and members of the CNE secretariat.
The president of the National Assembly of Guinea-Bissau, Domingos Simões Pereira, the deputy of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) Octávio Lopes, and Roberto Mbesba, from the campaign board of the opponent Fernando Dias, were also detained, according to Turé.
“We don’t know what the motivations are, but it is assumed that it has to do with the role in the operations to determine the electoral results, because under the terms of our electoral legislation, public prosecutors participate as observers in different phases of electoral tabulation operations, and at the time there was information that one of these magistrates had prevented intentions to tamper with the electoral results”, explained Bubacar Turé, considering that “these arrests end up confirming these rumors”.
According to the president of the Guinean Human Rights League, these detainees remain in uncertain whereabouts.
Bubacar Turé also mentioned that an undetermined number of political leaders were also “illegally and arbitrarily detained”, as well as around 30 young people who were arrested and “brutally beaten”.
The league is also aware of more than ten cases of invasions of citizens’ homes under the pretext of searches, which, from its perspective, are illegal, as they do not have any judicial framework nor were they determined by magistrates, denounced the person responsible.
“We are deeply concerned about the lives and physical integrity of all those detained, […] We continue to demand the immediate and unconditional release of all these people and hold the military authorities responsible for the lives and physical integrity of these people.”said Bubacar Turé.
The Guinean League of Human Rights appealed to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which it said was on its way to Bissau, to place among its priorities the demand for the release of detainees and the conclusion of the electoral process.
“The only way to save Guinea-Bissau, to allow the return of peace, of governability, to allow the return to constitutional order is the conclusion of the electoral process, which means the publication of the electoral results, the creation of security conditions that allow the new President of the Republic to take office, and then create conditions for the new Government, so that the country can return to constitutional normality and democratic institutions can return to fully functioning”, highlighted Bubacar Turé.
The elections, which took place without incident on the 23rd, were held without the participation of the main opposition party, PAIGC, and its candidate, Domingos Simões Pereira, excluded from the dispute and who declared support for the opposition candidate Fernando Dias da Costa.
Dias had claimed victory in the first round over President Embaló, candidate for a second term. The release of the official election results was scheduled for Thursday, November 27.
The seizure of power by the military, which removed the outgoing President, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, and suspended the electoral process, was condemned by the international community and is being denounced by the opposition as a maneuver to prevent the dissemination of election results.