NEW YORK (Dec. 19, 2024) — This week, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) submitted an individual complaint to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) and an urgent appeal to several UN Special Procedures, including the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID), on behalf of Equatoguinean lawyer and human rights activist Anacleto Micha Ndong Nlang.
Ndong Nlang is a well-known activist and civil society leader in Equatorial Guinea. As a junior lawyer, he assisted human rights activists and democratic opposition leaders arrested for criticizing the Equatoguinean regime. He has also spearheaded numerous social media campaigns and protests to raise awareness about the extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, and targeting of dissidents and activists in his country. Ndong Nlang regularly advocates for the peaceful pursuit of democracy and has publicly criticized the regime’s human rights abuses. As a result, the regime has repeatedly detained and harassed him.
On January 26, 2024, plainclothes security officials violently arrested Ndong Nlang at his home in Malabo, without a warrant. His arrest followed a complaint he filed against high-ranking security officials, exposing the kidnapping and torture he endured during his earlier detention from September 2022 to June 2023. Only a month after his arrest, he was finally brought before a judge, who ordered his indefinite pretrial detention. He was charged with slander against a high-ranking official, based on his complaint.
Ndong Nlang was last seen and heard from on March 22, 2024. Officials have refused to provide information on his fate or condition and denied him the right to communicate with his lawyers and family. In July, the Court of Instruction No. III in Malabo stated that he had been moved to the maximum-security prison of Oveng Azem, located in a remote area on the mainland. His family and lawyers have been unable to confirm his whereabouts and condition because they are still denied communication with him.
“The regime in Equatorial Guinea frequently sends political prisoners to Oveng Azem prison as a tactic to isolate them from their lawyers, families, and the outside world. This isolation leaves prisoners more vulnerable to torture and abuse, without public scrutiny or oversight,” HRF International Legal Associate Caitlin Triplett said.
Based on Ndong Nlang’s previous torture and abuse at the hands of officials in retaliation for his activism, his disappearance and transfer to Oveng Azem prison are likely being done to silence him, and to subject him to torture and mistreatment without any oversight.
HRF strongly condemns Ndong Nlang’s detention, requests that the UNWGAD and UNWGEID take action, and urges the Equatoguinean regime to immediately and unconditionally release him and other prisoners of conscience unjustly detained in Equatorial Guinea.
