Human Rights Lawyers Struggle in Equatorial Guinea

Lawyers in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea say they struggle to make their government uphold human rights, in a country often described as one of the worst abusers of basic freedoms on the continent. VOA's Nico Colombant has more from Malabo.

Lawyer Fabian Nsue Nguema shows a letter written by a woman whose husband he says was detained without any legal protection.

He also has pictures of an opposition activist who he says was recently killed at the Black Beach prison in Malabo.

Authorities say it was a suicide.

But Nguema says that is preposterous. He says there is video surveillance at the prison.

He himself was a prisoner there in 2002 for five and a half months. He was incarcerated for insulting President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, who has been in power since a coup in 1979.

Lawyer Nguema, no relation to the president, calls Equatorial Guinea a criminal state run mostly by greedy illiterates.

He says even though there has been international attention on the problem of human rights in Equatorial Guinea, he thinks the situation is getting worse.

~ more... ~