Amnesty International Report 1997 - Guinea-Bissau

Dozens of people were tortured and ill-treated by the police. One person was killed and others were injured when police opened fire during a violent demonstration. One person was extrajudicially executed. A human rights worker and a journalist received threats of physical harm after criticizing government policies. Torture and ill-treatment by police were reported on a regular basis in all parts of the country. The government of President João Bernardo Vieira took no action to investigate these reports. The victims included members of a group of 50 foreign nationals from Cameroon, Liberia, Nigeria and other African countries forcibly expelled from Spain as illegal immigrants in June and detained in the capital, Bissau. Most of them were beaten by members of the Rapid Intervention Police on arrival at the airport. They were taken to the Second Squadron police detention centre where many of them were again beaten. Japhy Sul, a Nigerian, alleged that he was beaten on the head with a gun. One man said his hand was broken. Another had teeth knocked out. After being held incommunicado for about two weeks the detainees were allowed to leave the prison during the day. Beatings continued to be reported until mid-August. In August, after six of those detained, all nationals of the neighbouring Republic of Guinea, were ordered to leave the country, the remaining 44 men went on a hunger-strike, which lasted a total of eight days, in protest at their treatment. In September, one person was killed and several others were injured by the Rapid Intervention Police during a demonstration, by the foreign nationals and Guinea-Bissau sympathizers, which turned violent. Police shot into the crowd, killing Naruna Ahire Uwaifo, a Nigerian, and wounding another Nigerian, David Adekoro Damolekun, in the arm. Two other men, Femi Singleton, a Nigerian, and Soulemanou Zakari, a Cameroonian, were badly beaten by police and reportedly sustained black eyes, bruised faces and lacerations on their backs. Cesaltine Leila Choaib, an elderly woman who lived near the prison and who had befriended the detainees, was also arrested. She was made to undress, beaten and kicked and then released without charge. In mid-October, the remaining 20 Nigerians were each given money and driven to the Gambia where they were expected to fly back to Nigeria. Twenty-two of the foreign nationals were repatriated in December. One, a Rwandan, remained in Guinea-Bissau at the end of the year. A parliamentary commission set up in October to examine the government's handling of the case of the 50 foreign nationals had not published its findings by the end of the year. There was apparently no judicial investigation into the alleged torture and the death of Naruna Ahire Uwaifo. In June, a police officer extrajudicially executed João Manuel Nhamai Figá in Bandim, Bissau. The victim had been running to escape arrest for non-payment of a small debt but fell into a ditch where the police officer shot him three times in the stomach. The judicial police initiated an inquiry which had not concluded by the end of the year. The Liga Guineese de Direitos Humanos (LGDH), Guinea (Bissau) Human Rights League, wrote to the government to express concern but received no response. Critics of government policy sometimes received threats of physical harm. In January, Amine Saad, Secretary General of the União para Mudança, Union for Change, lodged a complaint with the Procurator General alleging that he had received a death threat from a senior government official in December 1995. The procuracy had not examined the complaint by the end of the year. Fernando Gomes, President of the LGDH, received threats of physical harm in May after the LGDH issued a press statement expressing concern that the Prime Minister had assaulted a number of citizens. In October, the director of a privately owned radio station announced that the father of Ladislau Stanislau Robalo, one of the radio station's reporters, had been told by government officials that his son would be badly beaten if he did not stop telling "lies" about the Prime Minister and the government. After the announcement the government reportedly assured the journalists that their right to freedom of expression would be respected. Amnesty International expressed concern about threats against the physical safety of Fernando Gomes. It also asked the government about alleged human rights violations by government ministers. The organization called for inquiries into reports of torture and ill-treatment and into the deaths of Naruna Ahire Uwaifo and João Manuel Nhamai Figá. It urged the government to ensure that any of the 50 foreign nationals who wished to apply for asylum be granted a full and fair review of their cases. The government had not replied by the end of the year.