#opposition #Guinea #calls #protests #deaths
A political coalition called for fresh protests on Saturday, a day after Guinea’s junta denied that its forces had shot dead two teenagers during opposition demonstrations earlier in the week.
On Wednesday, an opposition coalition, relatives and neighbors said security forces in Guinea’s capital shot dead two teenagers as their convoy passed through the capital Conakry amid anti-junta protests.
The National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC) accused junta leader Mamady Doumbouya’s forces of killing the 17- and 19-year-old couple.
Junta spokeswoman Amara Camara said in a statement released late Friday: “The rumors of gunfire from the president’s motorcade are false and unfounded.”
But the FNDC, a coalition of political parties, labor unions and civil society organizations, called for fresh protests in messages posted on social media on Saturday. The junta banned the group earlier this month.
The alliance held rallies on July 28 and 29, during which five people were killed. She called for the demonstrations, also banned by the junta, last Wednesday, during which the two teenagers were shot dead.
Ibrahima Balde was killed by a projectile fired by a member of the security forces in Wanidara, a Conakry suburb that was the scene of clashes, his father Mohamed Cherif told AFP.
A relative of the young man said on condition of anonymity that he was hit by a soldier’s bullet as the junta leader’s motorcade drove through the neighborhood.
Oumar Barry, a 17-year-old secondary school student, later died in nearby Koloma district. “They shot him in the stomach in Koloma,” said his neighbor Pathe Diallo.
– Warning from the Minister –
Attorney General Charles Alphonse Wright, who was meeting with Barry’s relatives, said justice will be done, according to a statement read Friday by ministry spokesman Yaya Kairaba Kaba.
But the statement also made it clear that anyone who called for protests would also have to answer in court and denounce any attempt to exploit the teens’ deaths.
Police were on duty across the city during Wednesday’s banned demonstration, and protesters in a flashpoint Conakry suburb threw rocks at security forces, who hit back with tear gas.
The poor but resource-rich state has been ruled by the military since a coup last September that ousted President Alpha Conde, who has been in power since 2010.
In May the junta banned all protests and on August 6 ordered the dissolution of the FNDC.
The FNDC led protests against Conde when he was in power and fiercely opposed his bid for a third term, which they believed was unconstitutional. The demonstrations were often brutally suppressed.
Since the coup, the group has focused on the junta, increasing its concerns about human rights and the pace of the return to civilian rule.
Doumbouya has pledged to hand power over to elected civilians within three years – a timeline that other West African states want to accelerate.
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