South Africa: UN Demands Release of South African Engineers Held in Equatorial Guinea

2 July 2024
Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)
analysis By Peter Fabricius

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention effectively rejected the drug charges against Frik Potgieter and Peter Huxham as bogus.

Listen to this article 8 min Listen to this article 8 min The United Nations (UN) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has issued a Formal Opinion that the detention of Frederik (Frik) Potgieter (a 54-year-old South African citizen) and Peter Huxham (a 55-year-old dual SA/UK citizen) in Equatorial Guinea is arbitrary and illegal, and is calling for their immediate release.

The UN group's opinion, issued on Tuesday, 2 July, confirms its view that the two engineers are innocent of the drug charges which Equatorial Guinea brought against them in February last year and that their continuing detention is a grave violation of various international human rights conventions.

The UN group said: "The deprivation of liberty of Mr Huxham and Mr Potgieter is arbitrary in that it is contrary to Articles 3, 9, 10 and 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Articles 9, 14 and 15 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and falls within categories I and III."

Equatorial Guinea has signed both of these instruments.

The Working Group's website explains that detention is considered arbitrary under its Category 1 - "When it is clearly impossible to invoke any legal basis justifying the...

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