11 September 2024. It’s already been two months since the abduction of Oumar Sylla aka Foniké Menguè and Mamadou Billo Bah, two Guinean activists, members of Tournons la page Guinée and of Front national pour la défense de la Constitution (FNDC). The 9th of July 2024, they disappeared while they were participating to a peaceful citizens’ campaign denouncing media censorship in Guinea.
Despite testimonies targeting involvement of the security forces in their abduction, the Guinean authorities deny any responsibility, claiming that they don’t know where they are. The militant Mohammed Cissé, who was abducted with them before being released, described on social networks the forced displacements and the act of torture that he and his two comrades suffered from. The situation arises a deep concern, generating hunger as well as fear among their relatives, but also among all the community involved in the defence of human rights and the democracy in Guinea.
With just few months to go before the announced date ending the military transition, the political climate is becoming increasingly alarming. Came to power through a Coup, on the 5th of September 2021, the army initially gave rise to a feeling of hope among the population. Three years later, the sense of disillusionment is clear. Today, the President of the Transition, Mamadi Doumbouya, runs a country where the repression, authoritarianism, and violence prevail. In this sense, any form of criticism is severely repressed.
Since 2022, after dissolving the FNDC and the outlawing protests, the regime has step up the repression: restricting the access to the internet, closing down the most widely listened independent media, and violently repressing protests. Many political opponents and members of the civil society are now in exile or in prison. In this repressive context, lawyers, journalists, human rights defenders, and trade unionists continue to resist, often at the risk of their lives. On the 22nd of April, Amnesty International counted at least 47 peoples killed during protestations organised by the Comité national du rassemblement pour le développement. These abuses are well known, documented and denounced by the Guinean civil societies, in Europe, and in the United States of America. In this context, the France must communicate transparently on all aspects of its actual cooperation with Guinea, and withhold all its support, especially its security cooperation, which is likely to contribute to the repression of the population.
Facing this situation, voices are being raised among the international community to condemn the authoritarian abuses. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and, more recently, American and British diplomacy, are among those calling for measures. However, France remains silent, which raises question in France and in Guinea, in particular about France’s long-standing closeness and complacency with authoritarian African governments. It raises question on the French policy on the continent, which seems to have huge struggle to learn of its errors and to be rebuilt, and that in the context of the diplomatic breakdown with several Sahelian states.
The construction of a new partnership with Africa, announced by President Macron, must make respect for fundamental freedoms a priority in the political dialogue with states. The defence of human rights can’t already be a matter of variable geometry and double standards in accordance with French strategic and economic interests, at the risk for France to become uncredible on the international scene when it holds humanist speeches based on the defence of human rights.
In Guinea, defenders of human rights and democracy need a strong public support. France should support them as actors in the Guinean civil society, so that they would be able to fully exercise their rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, and that whatever their opinions.
As a group of association which defend democracy principles, rights and freedoms and as trade unions, we are calling on France to publicly condemn human rights violations in Guinea and urge for the immediate liberation of Fonilé Menguè and Mamadou Billo Bah. France must plea within the European Union for strong commitments for opening the civic space, respecting fundamental freedoms, and protecting human rights defenders in Guinea.
It is crucial that the future government take quickly position and expresses clearly its concern. Its silent could be interpreted as a tacit approval of the authoritarian abuses observed in Conakry, which would put France in a delicate situation.