Three months after the visit to Gabon of the members of the United Nations subcommittee for the prevention of torture (SPT) and the publication of their damning report on the conditions of detention in the country, the transitional deputy Lionel Ella Engonga, defender of prisoners’ rights, wants the establishment at the Léon Mba palace of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into places of deprivation of liberty.
Young girls in police custody awaiting their trial (illustrative image). ©DR
This would be a first in the country. Gabon could see the opening of a parliamentary investigation into places of deprivation of liberty. This is, in any case, the request made by the transition deputy Lionel Ella Engonga who submitted it on Friday June 14 to the president of the Commission on Laws, Administrative Affairs, and Human Rights of the National Assembly of the Transition. A request which comes after the visit in March of a delegation from the United Nations subcommittee for the prevention of torture (SPT) whose preliminary report was not complimentary about the conditions of detention in prisons, police stations , the custody cells of public prosecutors and others, like psychiatric and geriatric centers and hospitals.
For the MP and president of the NGO SOS Prisonniers Gabon (SPG), the establishment of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the places of deprivation of liberty at the Léon Mba palace is all the more important as it intends to allow these different places to comply with Article 8 of the Transition Charter which provides that“no exceptional or emergency situation should justify the violation of human rights”. However, at the end of his visit, three months ago, Abdallah Ounnir, head of the SPT delegation, decried “prison overcrowding and horrible conditions of detention in prisons and places of police custody” in Gabon.
This parliamentary commission of inquiry, if the body concerned agrees to create it, will allow “to make a real diagnosis, to collect information, to issue recommendations which will allow us to find effective solutions with a view to restoring dignity to our compatriots deprived of their liberty and thus complying with international standards in terms of respect for human rights »hopes Lionel Ella Engonga.
