As part of its 60th session, the United Nations Human Rights Council conducted the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Republic of Guinea on 25 September 2025, marking an important opportunity to strengthen the protection of human rights defenders in the country.
In its joint written submission to the Human Rights Council in September 2024, ahead of Guinea’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR), ISHR, in partnership with the Coordination guinéenne des organisations de défense des droits de l’Homme (CODDH), showcased the situation of human rights defenders in Guinea, which remains concerning.
ISHR and CODDH’s joint civil society report highlighted the shrinking civic space and attack on civil and political rights in Guinea since the political transition in 2021. It further brought to light instances of custodial deaths of defenders, including Mamadou Oury Barry, aged 21. Additionally, it discussed the excessive use of force and use of live ammunition by police during protests, and arbitrary detention of defenders like Habib Marouane Camara, Oumar Sylla and Mamadou Billo Ba.
ISHR deplores the continuing shrinking of the civic space as the 2022 protest ban remains in place, as well as the suspension of several non-governmental organisations and media, and the disappearance of some human rights defenders.
Meanwhile, ISHR notes some advances have taken place. ISHR welcomes the introduction of a draft bill on the protection of human rights defenders in the Republic of Guinea developed by civil society in February 2025, as well as the opening of the trial on the massacre of 28 September 2009 and the recent referendum of 21 September 2025 for a gradual restoration of constitutional order.
Therefore, ISHR and CODDH call on Guinea to fully implement the 218 recommendations it accepted during its last UPR in 2020 in accordance with Guinea’s international obligations. In particular, ISHR and CODDH further call on Guinea to lift the ban on protests, investigate all cases of enforced disappearances, regularise the situation of persons in arbitrary detentions, finalise and adopt the Act on the protection of human rights defenders in the Republic of Guinea, and ratify the Convention against Enforced Disappearances and the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.
From 15 to 22 October, 16 defenders from across Africa took part in ISHR's capacity-strengthening programme on the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) for the body’s 85th session.
On 22 October 2025, the Women Human Rights Defenders Network of Uganda and ISHR delivered a joint oral statement during the 85th session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
ISHR drew attention to the dire human rights situation in the Sahel, Guinea, Madagascar, and Palestine, in particular in relation to the situation of human rights defenders.
