Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema and his wife, Constancia Mangue, during a campaign event for the elections on November 20, 2022. EQUATORIAL GUINEA PRESS AND INFORMATION OFFICE
A military court in Equatorial Guinea has sentenced Gabriel Nsé Obiang, the main opposition leader in that African country, to 29 years and six months in prison and a fine of around 60,000 euros for the offenses of “abusing fundamental rights, insulting human rights”, illegal possession of ammunition and armed forces insults to the military authorities’ and for his complicity in the charges of ‘murder and assault’. The president of the illegal Citizens for Innovation (CI) party was arrested in Malabo in September 2022 during a violent police operation against militants from his party who were trying to approve his candidacy for the presidential elections.
The same court, presided over by Major General Alejandro Mitogo, also sentenced around thirty CI leaders and members, including Bienvenido Ndong, Rubén Nsué and Aniceto Nvé, to prison terms ranging from nine to 29 years for similar crimes. Although the press and citizens were barred from attending the trial due to the military nature of the trial, state television broadcast footage of the reading of the verdict, showing the defendants, dozens of CI fighters in prison uniforms, sitting in the courtroom. The military prosecutor had requested a 46-year prison sentence for Gabriel Nsé.
At the end of September 2022, about 200 militants from the CI, a party that had been dissolved by court order in 2018, had met at that party’s headquarters in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, to announce Gabriel Nsé’s candidacy for the elections that they had two months would take place later. In light of these facts and after being summoned twice, the Attorney General’s Office issued an arrest warrant for the opposition leader on 29 September. On the same day, the security forces, who had surrounded the building for days, forcibly entered the party headquarters to carry out the arrest.
According to the government version, the militants were “kidnapped” by their leader and some of them resisted with “white weapons and firearms”. The police operation killed at least five people – nine according to the opposition – dozens were injured and around 150 people were arrested, including Nsé himself. The CI fighters were transferred to different police stations, where they suffered torture and humiliation, including denounced them on social networks. On October 6, 119 were released without charge while the remaining 31 were detained awaiting trial. Gabriel Nsé Obiang and others have been transferred to the feared Black Beach prison, where allegations of torture and ill-treatment are widespread.
“The rule of law is mortally violated in Equatorial Guinea,” says Joaquín Elo, coordinator of the civil platform Somos+, “reading the condemnation of the CI fighters leaves the regime naked, it is an X-ray of the absence of the rule of law.” By 21st century standards, Equatorial Guinea is not a state, let alone a modern state. The evidence is the call for the last extra-constitutional elections and all that illegality entailed: imprisonment of dissidents; Attacks on political groups resulted in several deaths, of whom it is still unknown how many or who killed them.” “Even if they received a holy burial… that’s asking too much,” adds the citizen activist.
Citizens for Innovation was the only opposition party to win a seat in the 2017 general election, with the rest (99) going to the ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE). However, months later some 40 CI members were arrested and convicted for an alleged coup attempt, including the elected MP, while the party was dissolved by court order. Despite this, Gabriel Nsé started his candidacy for the 2022 presidential elections, claiming that the amnesty for all political prisoners announced by the government in 2018 made it possible for him to do so.
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Finally, the 2022 elections ended in a resounding victory for the current President of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang, who received 97% of the vote against his two rivals, opposition candidates Andrés Esono (2.3%) and Buenaventura Monsuy (0.7%). . In the parallel general and local elections, the ruling party and its allies won 100% of the seats in the Senate and Congress, as well as the 588 disputed council seats. Esono, the only authorized opposition competitor, denounced “massive fraud”. The European Union and the United States expressed their concern about the irregularities found, while the African Union supported the whole process.
81-year-old Teodoro Obiang came to power in August 1979 in a military coup against his uncle Francisco Macías. After almost 44 years in office, he is the longest-serving head of state in the world, not counting monarchies. His authoritarian regime was characterized by tight control of all economic levers and power, and suppressed even the slightest trace of criticism or dissent. International organizations have repeatedly warned of ongoing human rights violations, arbitrary detention and attacks on freedoms in Equatorial Guinea. The vice-president of the government and a possible successor to Obiang is his son Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, who was sentenced to three years in prison in France in 2017 for embezzling and laundering public funds.
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