Amnesty calls on government to "stop the killings"

Amnesty International has called on Equatorial Guinea to rein in its security forces and stop them killing, torturing and raping detainees, many of whom have been arrested arbitrarily. "The government of Equatorial Guinea must immediately bring an end to the extra judicial executions, torture and rape," the human rights group said in a statement issued on Monday. Amnesty said it was making the appeal after government forces responded to an alleged attack on a military garrison on Corisco Island near the border with Gabon by killing up to 16 people. Five survivors of this incident at the end of May had been tortured, raped and paraded on national television, it added. "They reportedly 'confessed' to using Corisco Island as the stepping stone from which to launch attacks on Malabo, the capital on Bioko Island, and Bata, the largest city on the mainland," Amnesty said. Equatorial Guinea is a small but oil-rich country, made up of Bioko Island in the Gulf of Guinea and a heavily-forested patch of territory on the African continent sandwiched between Cameroon and Gabon. IRIN tried to get government reaction to the Amnesty report but neither the justice nor information ministers were immediately available to comment. Amnesty accused the government of rounding up friends and relatives of those suspected of taking part in the Corisco attack and urged it to release these people. "(We) call on the authorities to stop the unlawful arrest of relatives of those sought by the security forces who have not committed any criminal offence," the statement said. Amnesty's reprimand comes four months after the security forces of Equatorial Guinea arrested 15 men, whom they said were an advance party of mercenaries planning to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. Around the same time 70 people were arrested in Zimbabwe on charges of conspiring to topple the Equatorial Guinea president after their plane landed at Harare airport on a flight from South Africa in transit to an undisclosed destination. Last month a South African court denied a request by the 70 men, who all hold South African passports, to bring them home to face trial. Their defence lawyer Francois Joubert said the ruling left the men at risk of being sent for trial in Equatorial Guinea, where they could face the death penalty.