The Media Foundation for West Africa condemns the violent arrest of civil society actor Abdoul Sacko and calls for his unconditional release.
Abdoul Sacko, Coordinator of the Forum des Forces Sociales de Guinée and one of the most outspoken critics of Guinea’s military government, was arrested at around 4am on Wednesday 19 February 2025 and taken to an undisclosed location. The Forum des Forces Sociales de Guinée brings together the main civil society associations and certain political alliances and trade unions that are opposed to the junta administration.
According to accounts from Sacko’s neighbours, armed assailants stormed the house where the activist lives. They brutally beat and tied up some of the residents, forcing them under threat to reveal Sacko’s apartment. Unable to break down the door of the victim’s securely locked apartment, the assailants chose an even more violent approach: they crashed through the ceiling, breaking into the flat.
Before the horrified and helpless gaze of his wife, mother and children, Sacko was beaten up, dragged to the backyard, and thrown into a 4×4 vehicle that sped off in the early hours of the morning.
His anxious family and members of the Forum des Forces Sociales, of which he is the coordinator, are still waiting to know where he has been taken, fearing the worse outcome. The soldiers, most of whom wore masks, could nevertheless be identified by their uniforms as agents of the special forces, whose leader is the current president of the transition, General Mamadi Doumbouya.
The arrest or kidnapping of Sacko adds to a list of abductions of opinion leaders in Guinea, the most recent of which is the case of Habib Marouane Camara, founder of the news website Lerevelateur224, who has been missing for two months.
The Media Foundation for West Africa condemns in the strongest possible terms the arbitrary arrest of the Guinean activist, and calls on the authorities to release all civilians who have been unjustly arrested and held in unknown locations. This type of action, which aims to silence the opinions of civil actors, violates international laws on freedom of expression and, above all, breaches Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that ‘No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile’.
