A prisoner of conscience was released. Students were briefly held without charge. Soldiers charged with disciplinary offences may have been prisoners of conscience. Detainees and prisoners were reportedly tortured and ill-treated. Official inquiries into seven apparent extrajudicial executions and the killing of two students by the security forces in 1995 had not concluded by the end of the year. Prisoner of conscience Ernest Nongma Ouédraogo, Secretary General of the Bloc socialiste burkinabè (BSB), Burkinabè Socialist Bloc, an opposition political party, was released in January. He had been sentenced to six months' imprisonment in August 1995 for insulting the Head of State after a statement by the BSB executive committee, claiming that President Blaise Compaoré had accumulated personal wealth through fraud, was published in a newspaper (see Amnesty International Report 1996). Ernest Nongma Ouédraogo was singled out because of his opposition to President Compaoré. In mid-January, he was granted special permission to leave prison for one month, shortly before his prison sentence expired. Dozens of students were arrested following protests in March, May and December. In early December, some 20 students from the Centre universitaire polytechnique de Bobo-Dioulasso, University and Polytechnic Centre of Bobo-Dioulasso, were arrested; all were subsequently released without charge, some after being held for more than two weeks. Two students, a Cameroonian and a Chadian, both recognized as refugees in Burkina Faso, were to be expelled to other countries in western Africa. Twenty-five soldiers of the presidential security service were arrested in Ouagadougou in October. The authorities described the arrests as a preventive security measure because of breaches of military discipline. Following investigation by the gendarmerie, the soldiers were charged with indiscipline. It appeared that some may have been arrested solely because of their close association with Chief Warrant Officer Hyacinthe Kafando, formerly responsible for the presidential security service, who was reportedly opposed to plans for restructuring the army and, in particular, the presidential security service. The soldiers were initially held at the Conseil de l'Entente building in Ouagadougou; some were later transferred to military barracks in different parts of the country. Chief Warrant Officer Kafando, also charged with indiscipline, was abroad at the time of the arrests. The release of all 25 soldiers was officially announced on 18 December, but had not been independently confirmed by the end of the year. On 24 December, Sergeant Arzouma Ouédrogo died in what military authorities described as a road accident. However, the exact circumstances of his death remained unclear. The Mouvement burkinabè des droits de l'homme et des peuples, Burkinabè Movement for Human and Peoples' Rights, a non-governmental human rights organization, requested an official inquiry into his death, but the authorities had not responded by the end of the year. There were reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees and prisoners. Following disturbances at the University of Ouagadougou in March, about 20 students were arrested by police. Some were beaten with truncheons at the time of their arrest. They were taken to the Sûreté nationale, the criminal investigation department of the police, where they were stripped and again beaten before being released later the same day. Thirty-five people were arrested in early May in Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso during demonstrations by student nurses and midwives of the Ecole nationale de santé publique, National School of Public Health. Some were beaten by police at the time of their arrest; one woman suffered a fractured jaw as a result. Some of the detainees were charged with breach of the peace but all were released three or four days later. Reports were received that prisoners at the Ouagadougou prison, the Maison d'arrêt et de correction de Ouagadougou, were punished by beatings. No action was known to have been taken against those responsible. An official investigation was initiated into the apparent extrajudicial executions in 1995 of seven men from the village of Kaya Navio, Nahouri Province, but its findings had not been made public by the end of the year. The men died after being detained by forces of the Centre national d'entraînement commando, National Centre for Commando Training, based in Pô, following a confrontation between villagers and gendarmes in February 1995 (see Amnesty International Report 1996). An official investigation into the killing of two school students during a demonstration in 1995 had not concluded by the end of the year. Blaise Sidiané, aged 18, and Emile Zigani, aged 14, were shot dead by security forces in May 1995 at Garango, Boulgou Province, during a demonstration (see Amnesty International Report 1996). Amnesty International wrote to the authorities, seeking clarification of the basis of the charges against the 25 soldiers arrested in October.

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