Equatorial Guinean lawyer and activist Anacleto Micha Ndong Nlang remains in arbitrary incommunicado detention despite a United Nations opinion calling for his immediate release. The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), within the framework of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, together with several international and Equatorial Guinean organisations, urge the authorities of Equatorial Guinea to implement Opinion No. 70/2025 of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and immediately release Anacleto Micha Ndong Nlang.
6 June 2026
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo
President of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea
Palacio Presidencial, Malabo
Equatorial Guinea
President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo,
We, the undersigned, respectfully request that you act decisively and implement the recent
opinion, No. 70/2025, issued by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) to
release Anacleto Micha Ndong Nlang, an Equatoguinean lawyer and activist who remains
incommunicado in violation of international law.
On 26 January 2024, plainclothes security officials violently arrested Anacleto at his home in
Malabo without a warrant. His arrest was in direct retaliation for a complaint he filed against
high-ranking security officials, exposing the kidnapping and torture he endured during a
previous unjust detention from September 2022 to June 2023. He was subsequently charged
with slander and placed in indefinite pretrial detention. Anacleto has not been seen or heard
from since 22 March 2024. In July 2024, a judge informed his lawyers that he had been
transferred to Oveng Azem, a remote, maximum-security prison where he is currently being
held incommunicado.
In response to the Human Rights Foundation’s petition, the WGAD determined that Anacleto is
being arbitrarily detained by the Equatoguinean regime. The WGAD explicitly called for his
immediate release and for full reparations for the violations he has suffered. As a member of the
UN, Equatorial Guinea has a clear obligation to respect the decisions of the WGAD and to
uphold its commitments under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention against Torture, and the UN
Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
Anacleto’s prolonged incommunicado detention places him at imminent risk of further torture
and mistreatment, particularly given his documented history of abuse at the hands of state
officials.
We respectfully call on your government to:
– Immediately and unconditionally release Anacleto Micha Ndong Nlang in compliance
with the WGAD opinion;
– End his incommunicado detention immediately and grant his family and lawyers
unrestricted access to him, consistent with international due process standards, pending
his release;
– Provide him with full reparations, including compensation for his arbitrary detention and
for the torture and ill-treatment he has endured;
– Guarantee his physical safety and well-being, ensuring he will not be subjected to further
harassment, threats, or violence by state actors;
– Drop all retaliatory charges against him and cease the judicial harassment of activists,
political dissidents, lawyers, and human rights defenders; and
– End the practice of enforced disappearances and incommunicado detention of prisoners
of conscience, including the use of Oveng Azem prison to isolate dissidents from the
outside world.
