In Guinea, three executives of the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC), a movement which had been at the forefront against a third term of Alpha Condé and which now opposes the conduct of the transition, were released from prison on May 10, 2023 after 10 months of detention. Ibrahima Diallo, head of FNDC operations, discusses the context of his release.
With our correspondent in Conakry, Matthias Raynal
After 10 months of detention, they were released from prison on May 10, 2023 in Guinea: three leaders of the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC). Among them, Ibrahima Diallo. Locked up on July 30, the FNDC operations manager was finally released on Wednesday. An FNDC which had been the spearhead of the challenge to the third term of Alpha Condé and which now opposes the conduct of the transition.
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Ibrahima Diallo took advantage of these first family moments. Sitting on the sofa in the living room, he is watching television with his loved ones. The day before, he was imprisoned in the central house of Conkary, renowned for its difficult conditions of detention and its prison overcrowding. There, he fell ill, contracted malaria.
His release from prison, he owes it, he says, to the ” pressure exerted by FNDC militants and their sympathizers, pro-democracy citizens who have never stopped mobilizing to demand [leur] release “.
The latter was done in two stages. First, the religious leaders came to see them on May 8, offering them, he explains, a compromise: their freedom against the assurance that they would give up their civic struggle. The leaders of the FNDC refused.
Then, on May 10, around 8 p.m., the director of the prison administration came to see them, bearing a message from the public prosecutor of the Court of Appeal. They are free ! ” But what freedom? ask the activists. At the other end of the line, the prosecutor evokes an unconditional freedom, until the holding of their trial.
Ibrahima Diallo believes he was the victim of arbitrary detention
Today, Ibrahima Diallo is impatiently awaiting this trial. He is being prosecuted for participation in a prohibited assembly and looting “, among others. Charges against him and his comrades, following the organization of several pro-democracy demonstrations in July 2022.
Ibrahima Diallo believes that he was the victim of arbitrary detention, after having spent 10 months in prison, without trial. He says he will file a complaint against the Guinean state. Before a local jurisdiction, but also sub-regional, at the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). In the meantime, the fight must continue for democracy, he assures.