Equatorial Guinea
Appeals for Equatoguinean political prisoner

afrol News, 26 September - Worldwide protest is directed against the government of Equatorial Guinea after Fabián Nsué Nguema Obono was arrested in April for criticising government policy in an Internet article. He was accused of defamation and slandering the Head of State. 

Mr Nguema Obono is a lawyer and member of the Popular Union (UP) opposition party. His arrest, in the capital Malabo, followed the publication of a communiqué on the Internet signed by him and published by Laurentino Nsué Mibuy, another UP member in exile in Spain. The communiqué criticized the government for cancelling a salary increase for civil servants which had been announced at the beginning of the year. 

Following his imprisonment he was reportedly severely tortured on several occasions, sustaining broken wrists, according to the human rights group Amnesty International. For these injuries, he has received no treatment. 

- After a reportedly unfair trial in July he was sentenced to one year in prison, Amnesty reports. The same trial convicted Laurentino Nsué Mibuy, in his absence, of defamation and slander, and sentenced him to two years and four months in prison and to pay a hefty fine. 

Amnesty has named Mr Nguema Obono as its appeal of the month of September. The group asks all its members to "please write, calling for the immediate and unconditional release of prisoner of conscience Fabián Nsué Nguema Obono and for the allegations of torture to be investigated. Call for the sentence passed on Laurentino Nsué Mibuy to be annulled." Letters were to be addressed to Equatoguinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo directly.

Equatorial Guinea is one of the countries with less respect of human rights worldwide. Freedom of expression is systematically undermined by the government, composed of President Obiang, his family and trusted friends of his clan from Mongomo.

According to the 2002 annual report of the French media watchdogs Reporters sans frontières (RSF), the Equatoguinean President "is not used to being contradicted." The report says "the independent press hardly exists in Equatorial Guinea" and that "the few critical journalists in the country are harassed and the broadcasting media are exclusively at the service of the president and his government."

Sources: Based on Amnesty and afrol archives 

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