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Gabon
Nine investigation cases continued to be handled by Amnesty International groups during 1974-75. The prisoners, who include teachers, students, and civil servants, were arrested between July and October 1972 and have been held since that time without being brought to trial. In February 1975 AI Secretary General Martin Ennals appealed to President Omar Bongo of Gabon to release the prisoners as part of a general amnesty. This initiative was supported by a post- card campaign by AI groups which have adopted prisoners in a number of French- speaking African states. During June 1975 the Research Department received reports of an amnesty, declared in the previous month, which freed over 300 prisoners. Further details of this measure are now being sought.
Guinea
Amnesty International groups continued to work on two investigation cases in Guinea: individuals held since 1971 and 1972 without being charged or brought to trial. Al is still concerned at the reportedly large numbers of prisoners held in Guinea, but lack of firm information and the sensitivity of the situation in Guinea precluded large scale work on this country during the past 12 months.
Ivory Coast
Amnesty International groups continued throughout the year to work on the cases of prisoners arrested during October and November 1970 following an uprising in the Gagnoa district in the southwestern region of the Ivory Coast. Following pressure from AI for a trial for these detainees (whose existence had been denied when AI first asked the government about them) they were eventually brought to court in Gagnoa during August 1974.
The trial, which was open to the public, was attended by an AI observer, Marie-Claire Picard, a French lawyer. She reported that several defendants com- plained that they had been beaten or otherwise maltreated while in the custody of the police, and that the legislation under which they were tried was highly repressive in nature, having been promulgated in 1964 to punish an earlier plot to overthrow the government.
Although 55 persons were acquitted at the trial, severe prison terms ranging from 5 years to life were passed on 85 others. During March 1975 AI appealed to President Felix Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast calling on him to grant a general amnesty which would cover the prisoners sentenced at the Gagnoa trial.
Kenya
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Amnesty International adoption groups continued throughout the year to work on the cases of two former members of the banned opposition party the Kenya People's Union (KPU), who had been detained without trial since 1969. These two prisoners are believed to be the only remaining KPU detainees, following the release in March 1974 of a third long-term detainee who had been the subject of an AI postcard campaign in February of that year. A third Al group continued to handle, as an investigation case, a prisoner who has been held with- out trial since June 1971, until news was received of his release in May 1975.