On April 26, Basile Mahan Gahé, general secretary of the national trade union center Dignité (whose food and hotel section is affiliated to the IUF), was arrested at his Abidjan home and forcibly taken into detention. The union office was sacked, and many union officers have gone into hiding. Since then, the IUF and other international and national trade unions, including the Ivory Coast's national center UGTCI as well as the Director General of the ILO, have contacted the government authorities to demand his release and guarantees of his physical wellbeing. the government has never responded. Amnesty International believes there is credible information that was subjected to torture, particularly during the early days of his detention.
To date, the government has refused to respond, or even to disclose the charges on which he is being held.On June 29, he was transferred from the police post in Abidjan's Williamsville district to the hotel "la Pergola" in Marcory, which now serves as a detention center. He still has not been officially charged.
Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, who was officially invested on May 21, has repeatedly called for national reconciliation - yet a trade union leader is being illegally held without charges.
Act now! - click here to send a message [1] to President Ouattara (with copies to Ivory Coast embassies in France and Belgium) calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Basile Mahan Gahé.