CONAKRY, July 10, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - The leader and an official from of one of the last civil society groups speaking out against Guinea's ruling junta have been arrested, their organisation said on social media.

Oumar Sylla and Mamadou Billo Bah were arrested late Tuesday by "a group of hooded soldiers, some in civilian clothes and heavily armed", the pro-democracy movement National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (FNDC) said, describing the arrest as a "kidnapping".

The arrests are the latest in a long string of opposition detentions carried out since the military seized power in September 2021, led by Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, who has since been sworn in as president and promoted to general.

Sylla, better known as Fonike Mengue, and Bah are "detained at the gendarmerie's judicial investigations department", the FNDC said.

A justice ministry official refused to comment when questioned by AFP.
The FNDC was at the forefront of protests against former president Alpha Conde, who was toppled in 2021.

The civil society collective is one of Guinea's last opposition voices trying to mobilise support for a return to civilian rule in the poor West African country, plagued with a turbulent political history.

Authorities dissolved the FNDC in 2022 after banning all demonstrations.
Sylla, the FNDC's national coordinator, has been arrested several times under both Conde and Doumbouya, spending a number of months in prison.
Bah, who heads the organisation's branches and mobilisation, was detained for nearly four months last year.

Demonstrations calling for the release of the two men, a third FNDC leader and all political prisoners led to the deaths of seven people the opposition says, something the police dispute.

The pair's arrest on Tuesday comes just a few days after calls for mobilisation for the restoration of withdrawn media outlets, against the deterioration of living conditions, and "other blunders of the transition", the FNDC said.

Authorities at the end of May withdrew the licences of four of Guinea's leading private radio and two television stations.