Seventeen police officers were injured, including one seriously, after spontaneous violent demonstrations on Tuesday and Wednesday in Conakry that followed the brutal arrest of three leaders of a collective, the Guinean police said in a statement on Wednesday.
Clashes between police and youth groups broke out in suburban areas of the capital to protest against the arrest of members of the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (FNDC), a coalition that had orchestrated months of mobilization from 2019 to 2021 against former President Alpha Condé (2010-2021), who was overthrown in September 2021 by a junta led by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya.
The demonstrators burned tyres, erected barricades, overturned bins and pelted the police, who tried to disperse them with tear gas. A journalist noted that a precarious calm had returned to the capital on Thursday. The spontaneous demonstrations are among the first in a context of protest since the seizure of power by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya.
The FNDC had called for a demonstration on 23 June, ignoring the junta’s ban. It had suspended its call the day before the demonstration to “give a chance” to the dialogue proposed by the transitional government.
But after the last meeting with the government, the FNDC denounced “a parody of a meeting”, as well as “the solitary and authoritarian conduct of the transition” and “the serious attacks on fundamental rights and freedoms”.
The national coordinator of the FNDC, Oumar Sylla – known as Foniké Mengué -, Mamadou Billo Bah and the rapper Alpha Midiaou Bah – alias Djanii Alfa – were violently arrested on Tuesday by police at the headquarters of their coalition, where they were holding a press conference. Mr. Sylla and Mr. Bah were beaten and their clothes torn by police officers.