Guinea opposition umbrella 'outraged' at travel ban on former PM Sidya Touré

Conakry, Guinea (PANA) - Guinea's opposition umbrella National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (FNDC), has expressed outrage at the travel ban imposed on former Prime Minister Sidya Touré.

In a statement, FNDC, which has called for a boycott of Sunday's presidential election in Guinea, slammed the government for barring Mr. Touré, from boarding a flight at Conakry's airport to Côte d'Ivoire on Wednesday.

It said the "unjustified decision" by the government of President Alpha Condé against the former Prime Minister under the late President Lansana Conté, who is also a leader of the FNDC, is exhibition of paranoia.

Mr. Touré, who is also a former High Representative of President Condé, and leader of the Union of Republican Forces (UFR), is not contesting Sunday's election.

"This is neither more nor less than the expression of a fear of a paranoid regime," said the FNDC, which for the past year has sporadically organised street demonstrations to denounce the candidacy of the incumbent president Condé, who is running for a third term thanks to the new Constitution adopted on 22 March.

The FNDC, which said earlier this week that nearly 100 of its activists and supporters were shot dead during the demonstrations that were intended to be peaceful, strongly condemned "this serious impediment to the exercise of a constitutional right of every Guinean citizen to settle and move around in the territory of the Republic, to enter and leave it freely".

It said this relentlessness against political and civil society leaders, is sufficient proof of the "paranoia" of Alpha Condé's regime "whose fall is imminent".

On his Facebook page, another former Prime Minister, Mamadou Cellou Dalein, the main challenger of the incumbent president, as well as two other candidates, have denounced the ban imposed on the leader of the UFR.

Relatives of Mr. Touré say he has filed a complaint against the Commissioner of Conakry's Gbessia International Airport.

-0- PANA AC/JSG/BBA/MA 15Oct2020