<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The UN Human Rights Council's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has demanded that the Government of Equatorial Guinea "immediately release" 37 Equatorial Guinean citizens detained on the island of Annobón following the July 2024 protests against the regime's dynamite mining exploration.</strong></h4> According to opposition sources, on July 18, 2024, the regime of Teodoro Obiang Nguema launched "destructive works on the island, including the use of explosives that have caused serious damage to the population and the environment," through the company SOMAGEC, "owned by the Obiang family and the Moroccan monarch." As a result of these construction projects, residents of the capital, San Antonio de Palé, took to the streets to protest the activities, concerned about excessive noise and the risk of landslides in the mountainous area surrounding Lake Mazafín, an ancient volcano and water source for the island. In response to these protests, the Vice President of the Republic and head of Defense, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue (son of the president), ordered a military operation and a wave of arrests. The Equatorial Guinea Progress Party (PPGE), led from exile in Spain, has firmly welcomed "this United Nations resolution as moral and legal support for the victims of an authoritarian system that represses any form of protest, in any corner of the country." "Annobón is not an isolated case: the entire Guinean people live under a regime that denies rights, persecutes freedom of expression, and responds with violence to the legitimate demand for justice, equality, and development," the party added in a statement issued last Friday. “These 37 unjustly detained individuals represent thousands of citizens silenced for decades,” he added. “The UN has been clear: it is not enough to release those detained; we must repair the damage, ensure that it does not recur, and put an end to this authoritarian drift,” he stated. “From the PPGE, we demand that the regime comply without delay with this international resolution, and we reiterate our call to all social and political actors, both within and outside the country, to join forces to open a democratic transition that will restore hope to Equatorial Guinea,” he concluded. On April 23, Ione Belarra, a Podemos MP and spokesperson for the Mixed Group, presented a Non-Law Proposal (PNL) urging the Spanish government to act against the “structural genocide” and “administrative apartheid” imposed by the Equatorial Guinea regime on the people of Annobón. To this end, the motion calls for political, diplomatic, and cooperative measures to end the repression, the promotion of an international investigation and a UN human rights verification mission, the inclusion of Annobón on the list of territories pending decolonization, and the reparation of the cultural and environmental damage caused by decades of toxic dumping and neglect.
