Inhumane conditions - Arbitrary detention - Extortion - Tortures - Illegal arrests - Fabrication of evidence - Incommunicado - Secret detention
646
12
31
12
DAYS
HOURS
MINUTES
SECONDS
Since they are illegally detained and tortured.
#FREENOUREDDINANDSYLVIA
Sylvia and Noureddin Bongo are French/Gabonese citizens who have been illegally detained and regularly tortured for almost two years in the central African nation of Gabon.
Their "crime" is to be related to the outgoing President, who was deposed in a coup d’état on August 29, 2023.
Unwilling to directly attack the former president, the new regime has instead chosen to target his family and have kidnapped and illegally held Noureddin and Sylvia despite them holding no formal political office at the time of their arrest.
The military junta has falsely accused them to legitimise their putsch, detained them with no legal right, deprived them of contact with relatives or a trial, and has regularly tortured them and held them in the most inhumane conditions.
No wife or son should be used in such a way to punish their husband or father. Sylvia’s and Noureddin’s health is now critical. They have no legal case to answer.
We beg for their release before they could die in detention.
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Electrocuted
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Water torture
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Beaten with hammers
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Whipped with pipes
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Strangled and punched
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Assaulted with a crowbar
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Deprived of daylight
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Solitary confinement
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Food deprivation
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Deprived family or lawyers
#What They Face.
Neither Sylvia nor Noureddin held political office at the time of their arrest.
For almost two years they have been held on fake charges with no trial date and have experienced the most inhumane treatment that no one, whatever their family
or background, should ever have to endure.
Their suffering has routinely includedbeing:
#Crimes Against Humanity
“We saw people who were deeply traumatized.
As for Noureddin Bongo, I was able to see on his chest the marks of the electric shocks that I had seen at other times and in other
places.(...)"
Mr François Zimeray, Human Rights Lawyer, former Human Rights Ambassador in Paris, former French Ambassador on the first and only visit granted to his clients after 17 months of detention.
#FREE NOUREDDIN AND SYLVIA .
SYLVIA BONGO
NOUREDDIN BONGO
Sylvia Bongo is the mother of three children who was born in Paris in 1963. When a young woman she met her future husband in Gabon, where he was elected President for the first time in 2009. As First Lady, she was not involved in politics but instead deepl involved in social causes.
In 2011, Sylvia Bongo has established a charitable foundation to work to improve the lives of women, children and vulnerable people in the country. She campaigned tirelessly both in Gabon and internationally to promote essential reforms in favour of equality. Now she has been accused of trumped up charges to justify her arrest despite no trial date being set in which these claims could be confronted.
Today it is she who is being unjustly detained – help us make her voice heard!
Noureddin Bongo Valentin is a businessman who lives in London with his wife and three young children, aged 7, 4 and 1 years old. After his father the President suffered a stroke in 2018, he took a break from his business activities to help the family by serving in Gabon as the general coordinator of presidential affairs for less than two years before returning again to his previous business life in London.
A graduate of the London Business School and SOAS, he was the deputy CEO of Olam Gabon.
With his wife, he founded the Otima Association, which works to defend children’s rights in Gabon. He was in Gabon at the time of his kidnapping after travelling to the country from Europe to help his father in his election campaign and has been held ever since without trial.
