[Guinean news] Security forces accused of systematic abuses

Guinean security forces routinely torture, assault and even murder people with total impunity, according to the watchdog organization Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In a report released earlier this week, HRW details how police brutally torture men and boys held in police custody. The victims are individuals suspected of common crimes as well as those perceived to be government opponents. Once transferred from police custody to prison, many are left to languish for years awaiting trial in cramped, dimly lit cells where they face hunger, disease and sometimes death.

The report is based on HRW interviews with 35 people, including many children, who provided detailed and consistent accounts of mistreatment and torture by police officers while in police custody. Victims told Human Rights Watch that, during police interrogation, they were bound with cords, beaten, burned with cigarettes and corrosive chemicals, and cut with razor blades until they agreed to confess to the crime of which they were accused.

[Guinean news] The power vacuum in Guinea

The BBC's Focus on Africa magazine has a good summary of the internal power struggles within the Guinean regime and the risks of the country becoming a failed state.

[Guinea/NGO news] Sex for food documentary

Insight News TV has a disturbing documentary which details troubling allegations that workers for the UN refugee organization (UNHCR) in Guinea are requiring sex from refugee children in return for aid.

The documentary is available online here.

[PC/FOG news] More PC Guinea blogs

Gambia RPCV Mike Sheppard has kindly passed along a nice website he has put together. This page lists all the Peace Corps-Guinea blogs he has compiled. This page offers links to all Peace Corps blogs he has collected.

Jen Daum shares hers.

[Guinean news] First private radio station in Guinea hits the airwaves

Radio Nostalgie Guinée became the first private radio station in the country's history. Based in the Téminétaye quartier of Kaloum in Conakry, RNG hit the airwaves yesterday at 6:00 PM local time. The station is currently broadcasting only music but intends to hire people to produce news programs, said its director. Guinea thus becomes the last country in the sub-region to allow private broadcasters.