Human rights in Guinea

Human rights in Guinea, a nation of approximately 10,069,000 people in West Africa,[1] are a contentious issue.

[5] After the 1970 Portuguese invasion of the capital, the government stepped up its campaign against political opposition and by the end of the year at least 85 people had reportedly been sentenced to death.

[10] In August and October 1977, however, the government fired upon a series of economic protests and killed an unknown number of women.

[10] In late 1978 President Sékou Touré proclaimed to journalists that all prisoners who had been sentenced to execution at Boiro were now dead.

[12] A May 1980 grenade attack on the Palais du Peuple and a February 1981 bomb explosion at Conakry Airport precipitated two more waves of politically motivated arrests, with hundreds detained and reports of death.

[13] People continued to be killed at Boiro through what was known as the "black diet" – a complete lack of food and water.

Torture methods reportedly used at the prison included bondage, forced burning with cigarettes, and electric shocks applied to the head and genitals.

[19] In their first public statement the new rulers claimed they would treat human rights as a priority and named those who had "lost their lives simply because they wanted to express their opinions on the country's future" as martyrs.

[19] Following the death of a criminal suspect in police custody in September 1984, protests erupted in Kamsar and 200 people were arrested.

[21] Human Rights organizations demanded justice for the killing of more than 150 peaceful demonstrators by Guinean security forces on September 28, 2009, in a stadium.

[22] Sixteen people were sentenced to death in 2011, which is apparently at odds with President Condé's assertion that Guinea is abolitionist.

[3] Amnesty has two reports of the use of torture in 2011: in February a man in Mamou was taken to the local police station after setting up roadblocks and beaten while handcuffed.

[3] Human Rights Watch claims that thousands of young girls working as housekeepers are raped by their employers.

[2] Despite being illegal, female genital mutilation is widely practiced by all ethnic groups: a 2005 Demographic and Health Survey reported that 96 percent of women have gone through the operation.