US deportee in Equatorial Guinea custody after criticism

An Egyptian man deported from the US to Equatorial Guinea and who spoke out against alleged rough treatment by security forces there has been taken into police custody and is being held incommunicado, his lawyer said on Friday. Police in Equatorial Guinea pulled guns on Ahmed Soliman and other migrants during an altercation last Saturday, according to three witnesses and video ​footage shared with Reuters, intensifying concerns over the safety of migrants who have been sent there, reports TimesLIVE. Later in the week, security forces returned to the Hotel Bamy, where the migrants are being held, and seized their phones, said Kate O’Donnell, an immigration attorney at a US-based law firm that has been representing Soliman. Security forces cited the Reuters story as the reason for seizing the phones, according to messages from Soliman to O’Donnell that O’Donnell shared with Reuters. On Friday, security forces took Soliman into custody, removing him from the hotel, O’Donnell said. A coalition of human rights organisations and lawyers representing the deportees said a second member of the group was also arrested. Equatorial Guinea’s Government and its embassy in Washington have not responded to questions about the incident on Saturday or subsequent questions about Soliman’s whereabouts.

Soliman ‘knew that he was putting his neck out there by talking to reporters’, O’Donnell said, adding that his decision to do so involved a lot of ‘soul-searching’ and consideration of potential repercussions. The Trump administration has since last year struck multiple agreements with ​African governments to accept migrants who it cannot legally return to their home countries, according to TimesLIVE. Many of those deported under the so-called third-country arrangements ⁠had previously won protection from US immigration judges, who found they could face torture or other abuses if repatriated. Rights groups and advocates have said the arrangements are ​opaque and that some deportees are ultimately returned to the countries they originally fled. ‘We demand the EG (Equatorial Guinea) authorities immediately confirm the whereabouts and safety of our clients, who have been subjected to police violence and are now being held incommunicado,’ said a coalition of human rights groups. The coalition in June filed a complaint against Equatorial Guinea at the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights over its agreement with Washington to accept third-country deportees.

Full TimesLIVE report