2024-07-23 20:15:14
The strike is scheduled to last until 11:59 p.m. on July 31, the day the court trying twelve former military and government officials in the trial of the September 28, 2009 massacre in Guinea is due to deliver its verdict in Conakry that morning.
“The hearing will be held on July 31 on the trial of the events of September 28,” the court prosecutor, Algassimou Diallo, told AFP on Wednesday, without specifying whether the strike will prevent the reading of the judgment, which is to be deliberated on June 26.
The accused, including former dictator Moussa Dadis Camara, are charged with murder, torture, rape, kidnapping, arson and looting committed en masse on September 28, 2009 and the following days.
At the end of May, the prosecutor had requested life imprisonment for him and six other defendants, as well as the reclassification of the facts as crimes against humanity.
At least 156 people were killed and hundreds injured in the repression of an opposition rally in a stadium in and around Conakry, according to a report by an international commission of inquiry mandated by the UN. At least 109 women were raped.
The lawyers intend to “protest against arbitrary arrests and other kidnappings followed by secret detentions of Guinean citizens,” their spokesman, Gabriel Kamano, told the press on Tuesday.
Two leaders of a citizens’ movement demanding the return of civilians to power, Oumar Sylla, better known as Foniké Menguè, and Mamadou Billo Bah, were arrested on July 9.
These arrests are the latest in a long series since Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya seized power by force in September 2021.
The authorities are repressing any voices attempting to mobilize for a return of civilians to power. In 2022, they dissolved the FNDC, a civil society collective, after banning all demonstrations.
The major parties have been reduced to inaction. Many opposition leaders have been arrested, brought before judges or forced into exile.
Former army chief of staff and former number two in the junta, General Sadiba Koulibaly, died in custody in June in mysterious circumstances after being sentenced to five years in prison for desertion and illegal possession of weapons.
On May 22, the authorities withdrew the approval of four radio stations and two television stations.
AFP