Guinea opposition leader arrested for 'insulting' junta

Aliou Bah, who heads the Liberal Democratic Movement (MoDel), was arrested on Thursday as he travelled to neighbouring Sierra Leone with two colleagues.

"Mr Bah is a real prisoner of conscience," lawyer Antoine Pepe Lamah said. "His only crime is criticism of the state in the face of the resurgence of kidnappings and forced disappearances."

Human rights groups also denounced his detention.

Bah's arrest is the latest in a crackdown on freedoms by the junta of General Mamady Doumbouya, who overthrew the civilian president Alpha Conde in a 2021 coup.

Since then, the regime has arrested or prosecuted a number of opposition figures or forced them to flee into exile.

Two opposition figures have been missing since they were arrested in July, while an ex-army chief of staff, the former number two of the junta and a doctor have died in unclear circumstances in recent months.

A journalist from the Lerevelateur224 website was arrested earlier this month by men in uniform in the suburbs of the capital, Conakry, and his whereabouts are unknown, his lawyers and a press union said.

The Guinea opposition has denounced the junta's increasingly authoritarian exercise of power and multiple rights violations.