Equatorial Guinea: Urgent Appeal to Implement the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s Opinion and Immediately Release Anacleto Micha Ndong Nlang

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that you act decisively and implement the recent opinion, No. 70/2025, issued by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) to release Anacleto Micha Ndong Nlang, an Equatoguinean lawyer and activist who remains incommunicado in violation of international law.

On January 26, 2024, plainclothes security officials violently arrested Anacleto at his home in Malabo without a warrant. His arrest was in direct retaliation for a complaint he filed against high-ranking security officials, exposing the kidnapping and torture he endured during a previous unjust detention from September 2022 to June 2023. He was subsequently charged with slander and placed in indefinite pretrial detention. Anacleto has not been seen or heard from since March 22, 2024. In July 2024, a judge informed his lawyers that he had been transferred to Oveng Azem, a remote, maximum-security prison where he is currently being held incommunicado.

In response to the Human Rights Foundation's petition, the WGAD determined that Anacleto is being arbitrarily detained by the Equatoguinean regime. The WGAD explicitly called for his immediate release and for full reparations for the violations he has suffered. As a member of the UN, Equatorial Guinea has a clear obligation to respect the decisions of the WGAD and to uphold its commitments under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention against Torture, and the UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Anacleto's prolonged incommunicado detention places him at imminent risk of further torture and mistreatment, particularly given his documented history of abuse at the hands of state officials.

We respectfully call on your government to:

1. Immediately and unconditionally release Anacleto Micha Ndong Nlang in compliance with the WGAD opinion;
2. End his incommunicado detention immediately and grant his family and lawyers unrestricted access to him, consistent with international due process standards, pending his release;
3. Provide him with full reparations, including compensation for his arbitrary detention and for the torture and ill-treatment he has endured;
4. Guarantee his physical safety and well-being, ensuring he will not be subjected to further harassment, threats, or violence by state actors;
5. Drop all retaliatory charges against him and cease the judicial harassment of activists, political dissidents, lawyers, and human rights defenders; and
6. End the practice of enforced disappearances and incommunicado detention of prisoners of conscience, including the use of Oveng Azem prison to isolate dissidents from the outside world.

Respectfully,

Amnesty International

ILAAD (International League Against Arbitrary Detention)

OMCT (World Organization Against Torture)

CEIDGE (Center for Studies and Initiatives for the Development of Equatorial Guinea)

GE Nuestra (Platform Equatorial Guinea Is Ours Too)

CADAL (Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America)

ACAT-France (Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture-France)

HRF (Human Rights Foundation)