The Crime of Complaints

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Human rights groups and advocates are voicing concern over the ongoing detention of dozens of residents of Annobón, a small island of Equatorial Guinea, who were arrested shortly after appealing to authorities to end mining-related environmental damage, the Guardian reported Monday.

Earlier this year, residents of the remote island complained of severe environmental degradation on their farmland and damage to homes, which they attributed to years of dynamite-fueled blasts from the mining sector.

In July, 16 islanders wrote to authorities in the capital of Malabo about the issue. But shortly after, authorities launched a swift crackdown, including arresting the signatories and their supporters and cutting off cell phone and Internet access on the island.

Three months later, only five detainees – all elderly women – have been released, while others remain held on charges of rebellion and the “abusive exercise of fundamental rights.”

Eleven detainees are incarcerated in Malabo’s “notorious” Black Beach prison. Meanwhile, 26 others, including poet Francisco Ballovera Estrada, are being held in a prison in the eastern town of Mongomo where they are being denied family visits and access to lawyers.

Annobón, a 6.5-square-mile island with around 5,000 inhabitants, lies about 425 miles from Malabo in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea, but has long suffered neglect and exploitation.

Despite the country’s substantial oil wealth, residents on the island lack basic amenities, and have limited access to electricity, potable water and healthcare.

Tensions on the island have been high for years: In 2022, two leaders of a 1993 youth uprising declared the island’s independence under the separatist group Ambô Legadu, sparking arrests and heightened surveillance by authorities.

Orlando Cartagena Lagar, a leader of Ambô Legadu, denounced the mining operations as “extermination” and said the government is excluding locals from decisions about their land and livelihood.

International organizations, including Access Now, have called for the release of the detainees, citing the government’s systematic violation of freedom of expression and the island’s isolation, which has prevented reliable communication with the outside world.

Since seizing power in a 1979 coup, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has ruled Equatorial Guinea as an authoritarian.

Obiang and his family have accumulated significant personal wealth, even as the majority of the country lives in poverty.

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