Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Guinea.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Guinea. Some of these links may lead to websites that
present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No attempt
has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking for
material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper
resources that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Guinea U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/guinea/
[accessed 22 July
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT Abuse of inmates in
government detention centers continued. Security officials designated as
“judicial police officers” abused detainees to coerce confessions. Human
rights activists noted the most egregious abuses occurred during arrests or
at detention centers. Human rights associations stated that complainants
often presented evidence of abuse, and wardens did not investigate these
complaints. These NGOs also alleged that guards abused detainees, including
children, and coerced some women into exchanging sex for better treatment. PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS Conditions in
civilian prisons, which are under the supervision of the Ministry of Justice,
remained abusive, with poor sanitation, malnutrition, disease, and lack of medical
attention pervasive throughout the prison system. Conditions were allegedly
worse in gendarme and police detention facilities designed for short-term
detention. Physical
Conditions: Overcrowding remained a problem. According to the NGO World
Prison Brief, in 2019 authorities held 3,782 detainees in facilities designed
for 2,412 persons. Government-funded rehabilitation programs were underfunded
and ineffective, leading some NGOs to try filling the void. Freedom House
Country Report 2018 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/guinea/freedom-world/2018 [accessed 12 May
2020] F3. IS THERE PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE
USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR AND INSURGENCIES? The new criminal
code adopted in 2016 eliminated the death penalty and explicitly outlawed
torture for the first time. The National Assembly passed a new military code
of justice in June 2017, completing Guinea’s abolition of the death penalty.
However, human rights watchdogs noted that the criminal code categorized a
number of acts that fall within the international definition of torture as
merely “inhuman and cruel,” a category that does not carry any explicit
penalties in the code. In practice, security forces continued to engage in
torture and other forms of physical violence with apparent impunity. Human
Rights Watch World Report 2015 - Events of 2014 Human Rights Watch,
29 January 2015 www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/...
or
www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/wr2015_web.pdf [accessed 18 March
2015] GUINEA IMPUNITY AND
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR CRIMES - Since 2010, the judiciary has opened several investigations
into serious violations by the security forces, including the 2007 killing of
some 130 unarmed demonstrators, the 2009 massacre and rapes of opposition
supporters in a Conakry stadium; the 2010 torture of members of the political
opposition; the 2012 killing of six men in the southeastern village of Zoghota; and the 2013 killing of demonstrators protesting
the delay in holding parliamentary elections. In 2014,
investigative judges took steps to move most of these investigations forward,
but their efforts were severely hampered by the failure of members of the
army, gendarmerie, and police to respond to judicial summons. Former head of
Guinea’s presidential guard charged with torture, activists say The Associated Press
AP, Conakry, Guinea 2 August 2013 [accessed 21 March
2014] Human rights
activists in Guinea say that a former head of the country’s presidential
guard is now facing torture charges. Aboubacar Sidiki Camara is
accused of ordering the torture of 17 people back in October 2010. Activists say the
presidential guard arbitrarily detained people and tortured them upon the
instruction of Camara and his co-defendants. Suspects on Trial
Over Guinea Attack Claim Torture The Associated Press
AP, Conakry, Guinea 22 January 2013 bigstory.ap.org/article/suspects-trial-over-guinea-attack-claim-torture [accessed 15
Aug 2013] www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2013/01/22/suspects-on-trial-over-guinea-attack-claim-torture [accessed 26 July
2017] The trial began
earlier this month. On Tuesday, defense lawyers sought to have military
chiefs accused of a role in the torture testify. A day earlier, defendant
Baba Alimou Barry said he'd been handcuffed, hung
up from a pole and "almost died" while in custody. IMPUNITY In April and May, four
people filed two separate complaints before a court in Conakry regarding
torture that took place in 2011 and 2012. These concerned two instances in
which gendarmes used torture to exhort confessions during a robbery
investigation. Seven gendarmes were implicated and had not been brought to
trial by the end of the year. One of the victims died from the injuries and
another was seriously injured. Step Up Efforts
to Ensure Justice for Stadium Massacre Human Rights Watch,
5 December 2012 www.hrw.org/news/2012/12/05/guinea-step-efforts-ensure-justice-stadium-massacre [accessed 23 January
2013] The 58-page report,
“Waiting for Justice: Accountability before Guinea’s Courts for the September
28, 2009 Stadium Massacre, Rapes, and Other Abuses,” analyzes Guinea’s
efforts to hold those responsible for the crimes to account. On that day,
several hundred members of Guinea’s security forces burst into a stadium in
Guinea’s capital, Conakry, and opened fire on tens of thousands of opposition
supporters peacefully gathered there. By late afternoon, at least 150
Guineans lay dead or dying, and dozens of women had suffered brutal sexual
violence, including individual and gang rape. More than three years later,
those implicated have yet to be held accountable. AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL From an old article -- URL not available Article was
published sometime prior to 2015 TORTURE AND OTHER
ILL-TREATMENT Allegations of
torture and other ill-treatment by security forces continued. In February, three
men suspected of armed robbery were arrested and tortured at the police
station in Bambeto, Conakry. One was tortured with
electricity, and another was beaten for four hours with his hands tied behind
his back, a method known as the “chinoise”. After
refusing to confess, he was stripped naked and kicked as well as beaten with
rifle-butts in front of his family. Both were sent to the Escadron
Mobile No 2 in Hamdallaye where they were burned
with cigarettes and held in the “brochette” position (handcuffed and
suspended in a squatting position, with a piece of wood placed between the
knees). The third arrested man was considered missing for a week before his
body was found in the mortuary of Donka Hospital.
He had died reportedly as a result of torture. Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For current
articles:: Search Amnesty
International Website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=guinea+torture&ref=&year=&lang=en&adv=1&sort=relevance [accessed 2 January 1, 2019] Scroll
Down ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61573.htm [accessed 23 January
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61573.htm [accessed 4 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law
prohibits such practices; however, both civilian and military security forces
beat and otherwise abused civilians. There also were reports that security
forces used torture and beatings to extract confessions and employed other
forms of brutality, including holding prisoners incommunicado without charges
under inhumane conditions. Students who were
arrested in 2004 during a strike at the University of Conakry claimed to have
been tortured in prison. No action was taken
against security forces responsible for reported abuses in 2003. Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 7 Civil Liberties: 5 Status: Not Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/guinea [accessed 23 January
2013] LONG URL
ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 12 May
2020] Under Conte, the
nominally independent courts remained affected by corruption, a lack of
resources, nepotism, ethnic bias, and political interference. Informal
customary justice mechanisms operated in addition to official courts.
Security forces have engaged in arbitrary arrests, torture of detainees, and
extrajudicial execution with impunity, and prison conditions are harsh and
sometimes life threatening. During the 2007 crackdown on demonstrations,
security forces fired at unarmed protesters, leaving at least 137 people dead
and nearly 2,000 wounded, according to Human Rights Watch. An official
inquiry into these incidents stalled, reportedly due to government
interference, and troops repeatedly fired into crowds during sporadic
protests in 2008. The CNDD suspended the judiciary following the 2008 coup. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance
& Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st Century- Guinea
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