Guinea's ruling junta seized power in a coup in September. By JOHN WESSELS (AFP)
Guinea's influential political coalition on Thursday called for renewed demonstrations against the ruling junta despite an ongoing ban on protests, a day after regional mediators met with junta leaders over a return to civilian rule.
The National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC) accused the junta, which seized power in a coup in September 2021, of a process of "contempt and arrogance" and "unilateral management of the transition".
The coalition said it would organize "peaceful civil demonstrations" in the capital Conakry on July 28 and nationwide on August 4, saying the junta "systematically refuses" to establish "credible dialogue".
It said the demonstration would condemn the "lack of a framework for dialogue" between military leaders and political and civil society, as well as the "confiscation of citizens' rights and freedoms" such as the right to protest.
In May, the junta banned any public demonstrations that could be interpreted as a threat to public order.
The FNDC called protests for June 23, but later called them off, indicating it was ready to give the transitional government a "chance" to start the proposed dialogue.
But their patience ran out after the meeting with the authorities, which the FNDC slammed as a "parody".
The coalition said the upcoming demonstrations will protest against the military government's refusal to publish a list of its members and declare their assets and against "the junta's instrumentalization of justice to humiliate and harass civil society and political party leaders".
A rocky transition to civilian rule
On Tuesday, opposition leader Oumar Sylla, a member of the FNDC, said he was prevented from boarding a plane to attend a West African civil society rally in Senegal.
Guinean authorities declined to comment on the incident.
Sylla was among three FNDC members found not guilty of contempt of court this month over comments they posted on social media criticizing the prosecution and the military-appointed parliament.
Their arrests sparked violent protests, some of the first since the ouster of President Alpha Conde last year by junta leader Colonel Mamady Doumbouya.
The FNDC coalition had previously been vocal opponents of Conde.
Doumbouya pledged to restore civilian rule within three years, but the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which suspended Guinea after the coup, rejected that timetable.
On Wednesday, the acting head of ECOWAS, Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, and the bloc's commission chairman, Gambian diplomat Omar Alieu Touray, met with junta leaders to discuss a return to civilian rule, according to the regional bloc and state media. .
The ECOWAS mediator for Guinea, former Benin president Thomas Boni Yayi, has been in Conakry since Tuesday, an official of the West African bloc said.
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