UN report attacks E Guinea on jails, detentions

GENEVA, July 16 (Reuters) Two United Nations human rights investigators today issued a stinging report on jails in Equatorial Guinea, wooed by many countries for its oil reserves, saying they had found prisoners who had been chained for years.

They said the country had political prisoners serving long sentences, appeared to practise secret detention, kept detainees from seeing lawyers and held many for extended periods without bringing charges.

In the capital Malabo, they added, large numbers of illegal immigrants -- many of whom go to the country in search of work in the oil industry, according to human rights groups -- were held for long periods without enough food and water.

The pair's report, issued after a visit to the former Spanish colony, said that thanks to its emergence as Africa's third-largest oil producer, Equatorial Guinea was now able to allocate resources for social and economic development.

Development, they added, ''goes hand in hand with human rights promotion and protection'' but their visit showed that ''the overall situation regarding deprivation of liberty remains an issue of serious concern''.

The pair, Manuela Carmen Castrillo and Soledad Villagra de Biedermann, were sent to the West African country by the UN Human Rights Council's Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, of which they are both members.

They said they had seen prisoners ''who are hand- or even leg-cuffed, at times for several years, or are chained to their bed during the night'' while there was no complaints procedure for detainees in jails, all run by the military.

Many people were detained with no legal basis, as a result of ''excessive interpretation of police powers'' or on arbitrary orders issued by superior authorities, who enjoyed impunity for their acts. Women and juveniles were held together with men.

Last November, Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema promised Spain he would free all political prisoners, but rights groups say he has not carried out the pledge.

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