Trump deportees in Equatorial Guinea tortured – lawyers

Two men that the Trump administration expelled to Equatorial Guinea were bound, fitted with bags over their heads, beaten and pushed down a flight of stairs, all in plain view of other US deportees, according to witnesses and human rights lawyers. The men – one from Egypt and one from Eritrea – were then taken to a prison, according to The Guardian. About 30 detainees from the US remain trapped at a hotel in the outskirts of the coastal city of Malabo after being deported from the US. Detainees have said they believe the men were beaten for telling the press and human rights advocates about the poor conditions and violence inside the hotel. Human rights advocates and experts have warned for months that conditions at the Hotel Bamy – a run-down establishment that has served as a detention centre for US deportees – are dangerous. The US has sent at least 66 people from different African countries, Cuba and Brazil to Equatorial Guinea, which has received $7.5m as part of a deal to cooperate with the US deportation program. Advocates have been especially concerned for deportees sent to Equatorial Guinea, where the authoritarian government is notorious for human rights abuses, including torture, according to the US state department. Detainees held at Hotel Bamy said that armed guards keep watch over them 24/7, and that they have not been provided any medical care or even fresh clothes since arriving there.

The two men who were tortured – Ahmed Soliman of Egypt, and Samson Birhane of Eritrea – have since been transferred to a prison in Malabo. In May, human rights experts at the United Nations issued a rare public appeal asking Equatorial Guinea to halt plans to return deportees to their home countries and to comply with international human rights standards and avoid refoulement, or the expulsion of people to countries where they face persecution. In the week since Soliman and Birhane were beaten, police have also been searching the other detainees’ hotel rooms for cellphones, and have confiscated them. They have also barred lawyers from seeing the deportees. Authorities have told the 29 US deportees who remain at Hotel Bamy that they may never see Soliman or Birhane again, according to lawyers. Lawyers for the deportees shared copies of multiple emails they had sent to the US embassy in Equatorial Guinea alerting them to threats and violence against those detained at Hotel Bamy, but those messages have gone unanswered, they said. In July, amid a lawsuit challenging conditions for deportees, the African Commission issued an urgent interim order instructing the government of Equatorial Guinea to refrain from deporting, transferring, or relocating deportees against their will. According to The Guardian, a spokesperson for the state department did not respond to questions about whether it was aware of how Equatorial Guinea was treating US deportees, nor would it acknowledge whether any measures have been taken to intervene.