Guinea's military-appointed government announced this week the dissolution of the largest opposition group, the National Front for Defense of the Constitution (FNDC).
Monday's decree referred to alleged violence and threats to national unity and peace. Critics and rights groups said the move threatened Guinea's return to democratic rule. It came just hours after calling for nationwide peaceful demonstrations demanding dialogue.
Human Rights His Watch report said the government's allegations were ambiguous and said the FNDC had not been given an opportunity to defend itself before an independent judiciary.
FNDC's dissolution comes 11 months after he led demonstrations against then-President Alfa Condé, who was eventually ousted in a military coup last September.
Democratic values were "endangered"
Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the coup
"And this recent decision to dissolve the main opposition coalition puts Guinea's democratic values at risk." It's another sign that it's being done," Allegrozzi said. “Human rights defenders, political activists and political opponents are at risk.”
The FNDC was made up of civil society groups and opposition parties that condemned the authoritarian actions of Guinea's interim government.
Guinea is one of several countries in West Africa that has experienced a coup in the last two years.
Allegrozzi said Guinea's actions send a negative message to other countries in the region struggling to transition to democracy.
} "Regional political instability is taking hold in West and Central Africa and needs to be countered," Allegrozzi said.
Allegrozzi called on her ECOWAS of the African Union and the West African Economic Area:
In 2010, Condé became Guinea's first democratically elected president, but accusations of corruption and authoritarian behavior mounted in many places. his tenure. Last September, he was overthrown after winning what critics called an illegal third term.
Pledge to resume civil rule
Guinea's interim president and former special forces commander, Col. promised. But ECOWAS and he FNDC argue that three years is too long.
Amadou Barry, a Guinean-Canadian professor of philosophy specializing in international relations at the Ségyep de Saint-Hiasante in Quebec, Canada, from Conakry to the VOA said that since Condé's expulsion, Guinean said they were holding on to the hope that they would see peace. Instead, they witnessed the same conflict repeated.
"This hope is crumbling," he said. "Because we know that we cannot organize our society on the basis of democratic principles and the rule of law. It is important to ask ourselves, 'Why can't we?'"
Barry said that constructive dialogue on issues of collective power is the only way forward.
