This report contains information on the case of nine prisoners of conscience, whose continued detention casts a shadow over the country’s recent ratification of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Prisoners of conscience currently detained include two opposition leaders, whose detention prevented them from taking an active part in national elections in May 1996, and seven men convicted in three separate trials on charges of “anti-constituional” activity. They are serving sentences ranging from 10 months to four years’ imprisonment, although no evidence was produced in court to show that they had used or advocated violence.
