# Guinea - United States Department of State

- 2024 Interagency Fact Sheets HomeU.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability &#8230;2024 Interagency Fact Sheets				hide		if(window.jQuery) {		jQuery( document ).ready(function() {			if (jQuery(".bc_middle").hasClass("collapse")) {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});				jQuery(".bc_hide").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});			} else {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").hide();			}		});	}																										2024 Interagency Fact Sheets																																																																										The following fact sheets were created to provide a snapshot of efforts under the U.S. Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability (SPCPS) in each priority country/region.  Each fact sheet details the main objectives and lists a sample of activities that the wider U.S. government is leveraging for SPCPS.Coastal West AfricaHaitiLibyaMozambiquePapua New Guinea						Tags																					Benin																								Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations																								Côte d&#039;Ivoire																								Ghana																								Guinea																								Haiti																								Libya																								Mozambique																								Papua New Guinea																								Togo
- Guinea HomeReportsBureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices&#8230;Guinea				hide	document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {	if(window.jQuery) {		jQuery( document ).ready(function() {			if (jQuery(".bc_middle").hasClass("collapse")) {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});				jQuery(".bc_hide").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});			} else {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").hide();			}		});	}});																							2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Guinea																																					Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor																																																																																							Download Report																																																							Translations																																																																 In this section										/																							EXECUTIVE SUMMARY																																													EXECUTIVE SUMMARY																															Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person																																																									a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings																																																																											b. Disappearance																																																																											c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and Other Related Abuses																																																																			Prison and Detention Center Conditions																																																																																																																		d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention																																																																			Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees																																																																																																																		e. Denial of Fair Public Trial																																																																			Trial Procedures																																																								Political Prisoners and Detainees																																																																																																																		f. Transnational Repression																																																																											g. Property Seizure and Restitution																																																																											h. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence																																																																																	Section 2. Respect for Civil Liberties																																																									a. Freedom of Expression, Including for the Members of the Press and Other Media																																																																			Internet Freedom																																																																																																																		b. Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly and Association																																																																			Freedom of Peaceful Assembly																																																								Freedom of Association																																																																																																																		c. Freedom of Religion																																																																											d. Freedom of Movement and the Right to Leave the Country																																																																											e. Protection of Refugees																																																																											f. Status and Treatment of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)																																																																											g. Stateless Persons																																																																																	Section 3. Freedom to Participate in the Political Process																																																									Elections and Political Participation																																																																																	Section 4. Corruption in Government																															Section 5. Governmental Posture Towards International and Nongovernmental Monitoring and Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human Rights																															Section 6. Discrimination and Societal Abuses																																																									Women																																																																											Systemic Racial or Ethnic Violence and Discrimination																																																																											Children																																																																											Antisemitism																																																																											Trafficking in Persons																																																																											Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics																																																																											Persons with Disabilities																																																																											Other Societal Violence or Discrimination																																																																																	Section 7. Worker Rights																																																									a. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining																																																																											b. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor																																																																											c. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment																																																																											d. Discrimination (see section 6)																																																																											e. Acceptable Conditions of Work																																																																																																							EXECUTIVE SUMMARY				There were no significant changes in the human rights situation in Guinea during the year.Significant human rights issues included credible reports of:  arbitrary or unlawful killings, including extrajudicial killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention; political prisoners or detainees; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; punishment of family members for alleged offenses by a relative; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media, including violence or threats of violence against journalists, censorship, and threats to enforce criminal libel laws; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly; restrictions on freedom of movement and residence within the territory of a state and on the right to leave the country; inability of citizens to change their government peacefully through free and fair elections; serious and unreasonable restrictions on political participation; serious government corruption; extensive gender-based violence including female genital mutilation/cutting; trafficking in persons; laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults, and crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex persons.The government did not take credible steps to identify and punish officials who may have committed human rights abuses either in the security forces or in other parts of government.																														Section 1.													 Respect for the Integrity of the Person												    																																																a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings										There were numerous reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings, including extrajudicial killings, during the year.  On September 6, the Forces Vives de Guinee (FVG), a coalition composed of political and civil society organizations, published a list of 30 persons they allege security forces shot and killed during protests since June 2022.  On May 10 and 11, the FVG held two days of protests to demand the release of its leaders and a rapid return to constitutional order.  The FVG alleged that government security forces shot and killed seven persons during the protests.  The FVG also held protests on September 5, the second anniversary of the 2021 coup d’état, despite the government&#8217;s ban on street protests.  The FVG reported that four persons were shot and killed on September 5.The government made some progress against impunity.  The Court of First Instance of Dixinn on March 27 sentenced the principal commissioner of the central police station of Kaporo-Rails, Chief Warrant Officer Moriba Camara, to 10 years in prison, and a fine of 100 million Guinea francs ($11,700) for the killing of a student, age 19, during a June 2022 demonstration to protest an increase in fuel prices.The steering committee established in 2018 to organize a trial for the perpetrators of the 2009 stadium massacre resumed its work during the year.  The body reconvened in May and July.  The trial initially opened in September 2022, with charges of murder, attempted murder, rape, and torture against 11 defendants, including former President Moussa Dadis Camara.  In November 2022, authorities charged and detained six additional persons in the case, including officials of the army and gendarmerie, but as of September they had not been tried in court.																																				b. Disappearance										There were no reports of disappearances by or on behalf of government authorities.																																				c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and Other Related Abuses										The constitution and law prohibited such practices, but there were credible reports that government officials employed them.Human rights associations reported multiple incidents of abuse of detainees in government detention centers.  Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) alleged that security officials designated as “judicial police officers” abused detainees to coerce confessions.  Human rights activists noted the most egregious abuses occurred during arrests or at detention centers.  Human rights associations stated that complainants often presented evidence of abuse and wardens did not investigate these complaints.  They also alleged that guards abused detainees, including children, and coerced some women into exchanging sex for better treatment.Impunity was a significant problem in the security forces, particularly in the gendarmes, police, and military forces.																Prison and Detention Center Conditions						Conditions in civilian prisons remained harsh and life threatening, with gross overcrowding, poor sanitation, malnutrition, disease, lack of medical attention, and extensive prisoner-on-prisoner violence pervasive throughout the prison system.  Conditions were allegedly worse in gendarme and police detention facilities designed for short-term detentions.Abusive Physical Conditions:  Overcrowding remained a problem across all prisons in the country.  For example, according to an activist for prisoners’ rights, as of September 7, the Conakry Central Prison held 1,719 prisoners in a facility designed for 300.  In January, the Ministry of Justice&#8217;s medical examiner announced that 49 percent of all deaths in the national prison population in 2022 occurred at N&#8217;zerekore, a prison located in the Forest Region.  He noted that most of the deaths were due to malnutrition.  Authorities provided food at the Conakry Central Prison, but most prison directors relied on charities and NGOs to provide food for inmates.A lack of health care personnel, medicine, and medical supplies in prisons, combined with malnutrition and dehydration, sometimes made infections or illnesses life threatening.  A local NGO reported that the government assigned a single doctor, based at the Conakry Central Prison, to cover all eight central prisons.  Reports of overcrowding in medical wards at detention centers were common, including at the Conakry Central Prison.  Prisoners relied on family members, charities, or NGOs to bring medication, but visitors often had to pay bribes to provide the medicine to prisoners.  During his June visit to prisons, Minister of Justice Alfonse Charles Wright noted cases of malnutrition, a lack of hygiene, and poor quality of medications administered to prisoners (some of the medicines administered to the detainees were expired).Prisoner-on-prisoner violence was a frequent problem.  According to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) persons, abusers also targeted incarcerated gender and sexual minorities, with transgender inmates detained in crowded cells according to their sex assigned at birth and subjected to violence and rape by fellow inmates and guards.  This was particularly severe for transgender women held in male-only facilities.Mansour Bah died at the regional hospital of Boke on June 2 after being transferred from Boke Central Prison where he was in pretrial detention.  Authorities arrested him following a land dispute and transferred him to the Boke Central Prison on May 23.  According to the autopsy of the body, his death was due to head trauma.  The Ministry of Justice initiated proceedings against Bah’s fellow detainees “for willful assault and battery resulting in death without intention of causing it.”  The minister also suspended the prosecutor for professional misconduct.Administration:  Prison and justice sector authorities provided insufficient oversight of facilities and investigations into reported deficiencies.  Prisoners and detainees had the right to submit complaints but seldom did due to possible reprisals from prison guards.Independent Monitoring:  Local NGOs such as Equal Rights for All and the Association for the Support of Refugees, Displaced Persons, and Detainees received regular and unimpeded access to the Conakry Central Prison; authorities rarely granted NGOs access to other facilities to monitor conditions.Conditions in military prisons, managed by the Ministry of Defense, could not be monitored since the government denied access to prison advocacy groups and international organizations.  Although military authorities claimed they did not hold civilians at military prisons, previously reported cases contradicted this assertion.																										d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention										The Transition Charter, the previous constitution, and law prohibited arbitrary arrest and detention, but the government did not always observe these prohibitions.  The law provided for the right of any person to challenge the lawfulness of their arrest or detention, but few detainees chose this option due to legal costs, slow judicial proceedings, and fear of retribution.																Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees						Although the law required arrest warrants, police did not always follow this protocol.  The law also mandated detainees be charged within 48 hours, renewable once if authorized by a judge.  The law allowed the original length of detention to be increased to 96 hours, renewable once with the authorization of the prosecutor.  Many detainees were held for much longer periods before being charged.The law precluded the arrest of persons in their homes between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., but arrests between those times occurred.  After being charged, the accused could be held until the conclusion of the case, including a period of appeal.  Authorities routinely ignored the legal provision entitling defendants to an attorney and did not provide indigent defendants with an attorney at government expense.Release on bail was at the discretion of the magistrate under whose jurisdiction the case fell.  The law allowed detainees prompt access to family members, but access was sometimes denied or restricted until families paid bribes to the guards at detention facilities.Arbitrary Arrest:  On October 11, agents of the BAC 8 Anti-Crime Brigade arrested Lamine Waraba Sacko, a supporter of the former ruling party, the Rassemblement du Peuple Guinéen (RPG Arc-en-ciel).  He was subsequently charged by the Central Directorate of Judicial Investigations with incitement to violence following an audio recording made without his knowledge.  His lawyer, Salifou Beavogui, denounced the arbitrary arrest of his client without any prior summons justifying the reason for the arrest, which violated article 358 of the code of criminal procedure.Pretrial Detention:  Lengthy pretrial detention was prevalent.  The president of a local NGO defending human rights reported that one reason for long pretrial detentions included the lack of sufficient magistrates.  He noted in the country there was a ratio of one magistrate per 40,000 inhabitants and the magistrates were concentrated in urban areas.  Information was not available regarding whether detentions exceeded the maximum possible sentence.  The law stated that when the prosecutor had issued an arrest warrant against an individual or an individual was questioned by an investigating judge, the individual could remain in detention for a maximum of 24 months under circumstances related to national security.																										e. Denial of Fair Public Trial										Although the law provided for an independent judiciary and the Transition Charter also stated the National Council of Reconciliation and Development’s (CNRD) commitment to an independent judiciary, according to Freedom House, the judicial system remained subject to political influence and corruption.  Informed observers noted political and social status often influenced decisions.  Outdated and restrictive laws, a shortage of qualified lawyers and magistrates, nepotism, and ethnic bias limited the judiciary’s effectiveness.  Domestic court orders were often not enforced.  For example, some prisoners ordered to be freed by courts remained in detention because they failed to pay “exit fees” to guards.																Trial Procedures						The Transition Charter, previous constitution, and law provided for the right to a fair and public trial, and an independent judiciary, although burdened by corruption and limited effectiveness, generally enforced this right.The government did not consistently observe the right to presumption of innocence, the right of the accused to counsel (but only for major crimes), or the right to appeal a judicial decision.  Although the government was responsible for funding legal defense costs in serious criminal cases, it rarely disbursed funds for this purpose.  The attorney for the defense frequently received no payment.  Authorities allowed detainees’ attorneys access to their clients, but often on condition that prison guards or gendarmes were present.  The law did not permit forced or compelled testimony and confession of guilt but there were reports of abuse and harsh treatment and conditions in detention centers that undermined this protection.						Political Prisoners and Detainees						There were reports of political prisoners and detainees.  The CNRD arrested and detained multiple members of the political opposition on charges that civil society described was for the purpose of “political intimidation.”  Lawyers for detainees reported that authorities made many of the arrests during house-to-house searches at night in neighborhoods considered opposition strongholds.  Authorities also reportedly used excessive force in the arrests.On January 21, authorities arrested Mamadou Billo Bah, Mobilization Coordinator of the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC), on multiple charges including criminal participation in a gathering and complicity in the destruction of public buildings and private, intentional assault and battery.  He was released on May 10 along with three additional leaders of FNDC including the Coordinator Oumar Sylla (also known as Fonike Mengue) and FNDC’s Deputy Coordinator Ibrahima Diallo, who both spent 10 months in prison.  The government released them following mediation by religious leaders between the government and a coalition of political parties and civil society organizations, including the FNDC.On June 13, the court acquitted Fonike Mengue, Ibrahima Diallo, and Executive Secretary of the Union of Republic Forces Saikou Yaya Barry of all charges against them.  Saikou Yaya Barry was released in October 2022 and placed under judicial supervision to allow him to travel for medical treatment.  As of October, a trial date was not set for Mamadou Billo Bah.On May 10, the Dixinn Court of First Instance lifted judicial supervision against nine political leaders indicted in October 2022 on charges including “destruction of public and private property, criminal participation in a gathering”.The government permitted access to political prisoners and detainees on a regular basis to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights or humanitarian organizations.																										f. Transnational Repression										Not applicable.																																				g. Property Seizure and Restitution										The case of the government’s seizure of a politician’s property remained pending.  In February 2022, the CNRD launched an operation to recover government-owned properties, including the residences of Cellou Dalein Diallo, president of the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea, and Sidya Toure, president of the Union or Republic Forces.  As of September, a lower court requested to refer the case to the Supreme Court.																																				h. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence										The Transition Charter prohibited such actions, but there were reports that the government failed to respect these prohibitions.  Authorities sometimes removed persons from their homes without legal authorization, stole their personal belongings, and demanded payment for the release of their belongings.The government reportedly continued to arrest or punish family members for alleged offenses committed by relatives.  On April 24, a self-proclaimed traditional shaman predicted the fall of CNRD&#8217;s regime within 28 days.  Members of his family were arrested but were eventually released.																																					Section 2.													 Respect for Civil Liberties												    																																																a. Freedom of Expression, Including for the Members of the Press and Other Media										The Transition Charter provided for freedom of expression, including for members of the press and other media, and stipulated those laws pertaining to freedom of expression, which were in place prior to the coup d’état in 2021, would remain in force.  During the year the government limited freedom of expression and freedom of the press through journalist intimidation and alleged internet censorship.Violence and Harassment:  There were reports of arbitrary arrests, harassment, and intimidation of journalists by CNRD transition authorities.  Media professionals were victims of attacks and violence perpetrated by security forces and demonstrators during political protests.  There were several cases of journalists being arrested, including the October 16 arrest of 13 journalists during a demonstration protesting alleged government infringement on press freedom.  Sekou Jamal Pendessa, Secretary General of the country’s press union, was among those arrested; the press union claimed three journalists were injured during the arrests.  On May 17, two journalists were reportedly assaulted by military personnel for reporting on opposition protests, and on May 9, a journalist was reportedly assaulted by security forces for reporting on a protest at the prime minister’s office.  The government continued to use a law criminalizing the publication of “false news” to silence journalists.Censorship or Content Restrictions for Members of the Press and Other Media, Including Online Media:  Some journalists accused government officials of attempting to influence the tone of their reporting.  Journalists accused the government of targeted censorship of popular social media sites and some online news sites.  In February, the government blocked access to an online newspaper that was critical of the government, although access was eventually restored.  In May, two of the largest radio stations claimed that the government jammed their radio stations in Conakry.  Authorities blocked access to the news websites Inquisiteur (September 1 to October 12) and Guineematin (August 15 until November 4).In September, journalists claimed that the Presidency’s Office of Communications and Information (DCI) was censoring coverage of official events by preventing journalists from directly capturing video or audio.  They claimed the presidency’s communications office required journalists to work with the footage that DCI captured and edited.The government continued to pressure the High Authority for Communication to increase scrutiny of media and journalists.  The authority released a statement on March 3 to alert media of possible sanctions in the event of a violation of the law related to the dissemination of false information undermining social cohesion, peace, and justice, or of a defamatory nature toward public or private figures.Libel/Slander Laws:  Libel against the head of state, slander, and false reporting were criminal offenses subject to up to five years’ imprisonment and heavy fines.  Journalists alleged defamation lawsuits or threats to file lawsuits targeted persons critical of the government to silence dissent.  For example, the minister of justice directed the attorney general to take legal action against two journalists for making alleged defamatory and insulting remarks on a radio program on February 9.																Internet Freedom						Journalists accused the government of restricting internet access.  The CNRD denied these allegations.In May, the Association of Guinean Bloggers alleged the government restricted the internet for 10 days following an announcement by the FVG that they were planning a series of demonstrations throughout the month of May.  The association carried out tests and confirmed that popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Messenger, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok were inaccessible or heavily encumbered.  Several press associations also denounced the interruption of access to various domestic online media outlets.  The minister of posts, telecommunications, and digital economy and the government spokesperson denied any government involvement in the disruptions and explained these were due to technical problems.  On May 23, private media and online outlets held a one-day boycott of news to protest press and internet restrictions.  The boycott followed the shutdown of two radio stations, limited access to websites and social media, and government threats to close any media that undermined national unity.  Journalists reported that access to two popular local online news sites remained encumbered through mid-October, only accessible to those using virtual private networks.  On October 16, the country’s press union organized a street demonstration protesting the government’s alleged involvement in the cutting access to online news sites.																										b. Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly and Association										The government restricted freedom of peaceful assembly and occasionally hindered freedom of association.																Freedom of Peaceful Assembly						The Transition Charter and the previous constitution provided for freedom of peaceful assembly.  The law banned any meeting that had an ethnic or racial character or any gathering “whose nature threatens national unity.”  The law permitted prohibition of demonstrations or meetings if local authorities believed the event posed a threat to public order.  Authorities could hold event organizers criminally liable if violence or destruction of property occurred.  CNRD transition authorities routinely barred public protests and assemblies.The CNRD enforced its May 2022 ban on political protests.  The CNRD statement prohibited all public demonstrations in public spaces for the duration of the transitional period.						Freedom of Association						The Transition Charter and previous constitution provided for freedom of association, and authorities generally respected this provision.  Requirements to obtain official recognition for public, social, cultural, religious, or political associations were not cumbersome, although bureaucratic delays sometimes impeded registration.  (See section 3, Political Parties and Political Participation, for further information concerning political party registrations and the dissolution of the opposition FNDC coalition.)  Groups openly representing the rights and well-being of the LGBTQI+ community reported that they were unable to obtain legal recognition, even though there was no explicit law preventing their recognition.																										c. Freedom of Religion										See the Department of State’s International Religious Freedom Report at  https://www.state.gov/religiousfreedomreport/.																																				d. Freedom of Movement and the Right to Leave the Country										The Transition Charter permitted freedom of internal movement, foreign travel, emigration, and repatriation, but the government sometimes restricted these rights.In-country Movement:  The government required all citizens older than 18 to carry national identification cards, which they were required to present on request at security checkpoints.Police and gendarmes regularly established random checkpoints where they routinely demanded payoffs before allowing travelers to proceed.  There were reports of occasional beatings and death threats for travelers who refused.Foreign Travel:  On June 1 and again on July 24, border police stopped civil society activist and operations head of the FNDC, Ibrahima Diallo, from traveling without providing with any official reason.																																				e. Protection of Refugees										The government cooperated with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other humanitarian organizations in providing protection and assistance to refugees, returning refugees, or asylum seekers, as well as other persons of concern.Access to Asylum:  The Transition Charter and laws provided for the granting of asylum or refugee status, and the government established a system for providing protection to refugees.  The law on the right of asylum and the protection of refugees contained provisions to protect individuals from deportation.Durable Solutions:  Repatriation procedures existed and allowed refugees to choose voluntary repatriation.																																				f. Status and Treatment of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)										Not applicable.																																				g. Stateless Persons										There were a few hundred effectively stateless persons, most of whom came from Sierra Leone.  These persons did not meet any of the criteria for citizenship.  According to UNHCR, these persons requested neither repatriation nor local integration.  The government could not provide information on stateless persons due to a lack of identification activities.																																					Section 3.													 Freedom to Participate in the Political Process												    																						The Transition Charter called for free and fair local and national elections.																										Elections and Political Participation										Abuses or Irregularities in Recent Elections:  The most recent national elections in 2020 were widely reported to not be fair and free of abuses and irregularities.Political Parties and Political Participation:  There were no official restrictions on political party formation beyond registration requirements.  Parties could not represent a single region or ethnicity.  On February 16, the minister of territorial administration and decentralization threatened that political parties or organizations found criminally responsible for violence during the FNDC demonstration could face suspension or withdrawal of their accreditation.The CNRD authorities dissolved the FNDC, a prominent coalition of domestic civil society groups and opposition parties, in August 2022.Participation of Women and Members of Marginalized or Vulnerable Groups:  Observers noted there were cultural constraints on women’s political participation, evidenced by the low rate of women occupying influential political or government positions.  The 2020 presidential elections saw two women candidates run for office.  Political participation by openly identified LGBTQI+ persons was nonexistent due to cultural stigma and taboos that led LGBTQI+ persons to hide their status.																																					Section 4.													 Corruption in Government												    																						The law provided criminal penalties for corruption by officials, but the government did not implement the law effectively.  There were isolated reports of government corruption.Corruption:  The Court to Repress Economic and Financial Offenses (CRIEF), which handled cases involving large-scale embezzlement, corruption, and misuse of public funds, during the year kept some accused dignitaries of the former regime in pretrial detention and others under court-ordered travel restrictions while awaiting trial.  The government detained former Prime Minister Ibrahima Kassory Fofana and several other former ministers at the main prison of Conakry in April 2022 on charges of corruption and embezzlement of public funds.  In December 2022, the CRIEF investigation chamber ordered Fofana&#8217;s release on payment of a bond of three billion Guinean francs ($352,000), but the prosecutor appealed the decision.  Fofana’s trial opened on March 15 while he remained in custody.  Reportedly, other civil servants suspected of corruption fled the country, some of whom had international arrest warrants issued against them.Land sales and business contracts generally lacked transparency.  Business leaders asserted regulatory procedures were opaque and facilitated government corruption.  On June 15, the state general auditor released an annual report which presented an audit of public administration in the country, covering the period from January 2022 to December 2022 and extending to prior fiscal years.  The report uncovered numerous deficiencies and irregularities in financial management across the administration, indicating a pervasive lack of proper oversight and noncompliance with regulations.  According to the report, these issues pose a significant risk of misappropriation of public funds.On June 20, the CRIEF retried and convicted Paul Moussa Diawara, former director of the Guinean Advertising Office, and Inza Bayo, the office’s former administrative and financial director, for complicity and embezzlement of public funds of 39 billion Guinean francs ($4.58 milliion).  Both were sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay 50 million Guinea francs ($5,870) each.  Their original trial in the court of Kaloum in 2019 reached the same decision.																											Section 5.													 Governmental Posture Towards International and Nongovernmental Monitoring and Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human Rights												    																						Some domestic and international human rights groups monitored and attempted to disseminate information on human rights abuses.  They generally operated without government restriction.  Government officials rarely were cooperative and responsive to their views.  Since the September 2021 coup, CNRD officials included human rights groups as part of the national dialogue process.  The law governing associations in the country (including NGOs) did not specify a validity period for accreditations.  Nonetheless, the ministry in charge of territorial administration often provided permits which were renewed periodically.  In June, an international NGO received a one-year permit instead of the four-year permit previously granted.Government Human Rights Bodies:  There was a directorate of human rights and fundamental freedoms within the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights that was responsible for implementing government policy for the promotion and protection of human rights.																											Section 6.													 Discrimination and Societal Abuses												    																																																Women										Rape and Domestic Violence:  The law criminalized rape and domestic violence, but both occurred frequently, and authorities rarely prosecuted perpetrators.  The law did not address spousal rape or the gender of survivors.  Rape was punishable by five to 20 years in prison.  Survivors often declined to report crimes to police due to custom, fear of stigmatization, reprisal, and a lack of cooperation from investigating police or gendarmes.  Studies indicated citizens also were reluctant to report crimes because they feared police would ask the survivor to pay for the investigation.In domestic violence cases, authorities could file charges under general assault, which carried sentences of two to five years in prison and fines.  Violence against a woman that caused an injury was punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine.  If the injury caused mutilation, amputation, or other loss of body parts, it was punishable by 20 years imprisonment; if the victim died, the crime was punishable by life imprisonment.  Assault constituted grounds for divorce under civil law, but police rarely intervened in domestic disputes, and courts rarely punished perpetrators.On June 15, Sonah Camara died at Siguiri Prefectural Hospital from severe injuries inflicted by her husband in a domestic violence incident in Sèkè Alahinè, a district in Doko subprefecture.  The incident took place on June 10, leading to her hospitalization, during which a forensic doctor confirmed the severity of her injuries.  Authorities arrested and detained the perpetrator but information regarding his trial was unavailable at year’s end.Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C):  Although the Transition Charter did not explicitly prohibit FGM/C, it granted individuals the right to their physical integrity.  Prior to 2021, the constitution and laws prohibited FGM/C.  The country had an extremely high FGM/C prevalence rate.  According to a 2018 UNICEF survey, 94.5 percent of women and girls ages 15 to 49 had undergone the procedure, which was practiced throughout the country and among all religious and ethnic groups.The law specified imprisonment of five to 20 years and a fine if the victim was severely injured or died; if the victim died within 40 days of the procedure the penalty prescribed up to life in prison or death.  The law provided for imprisonment of three months to two years and fines for perpetrators who did not inflict severe injury or death.  These laws were not effectively nor regularly enforced.During the year, the government implemented actions to combat FGM/C.  In March, members of the National Transition Council, the transitional legislative body, sought training from UNICEF training to address the problem of FGM/C when drafting the new constitution.  In January, 37 agents from integrated services (justice, police, gendarmerie, and health) received training focused on the prevention and the provision of medical, legal, judicial, and psychosocial care related to gender-based violence and FGM/C.  Between January and July, 105 communities from the regions of N’Zérékoré, Mamou, Labé, and Faranah publicly committed to abandoning FGM/C and child marriages within their communities.  These commitments were accompanied by post-declaration monitoring mechanisms.  Additionally, on September 4, the government officially launched a platform to centralize national data on FGM/C.Other Forms of Gender-based Violence or Harassment:  According to the Union of Guinean Workers, women working in the public sector reported professional repercussions, marginalization, and threats by superiors when women did not accept their advances.Discrimination:  The law did not provide for the same legal status and rights for women as for men, including in inheritance, property, employment, credit, and divorce.  Although the law prohibited gender discrimination in hiring, the government did not effectively enforce this provision.  The labor code prohibited night work for women in factories, mines and quarries, construction sites, shops, and their outbuildings of any kind.  Traditional practices historically discriminated against women and sometimes took precedence over the law, particularly in rural areas.Government officials acknowledged that polygamy was common.  The law made monogamy the standard for marriage, except in the case of an “explicit agreement” with the first wife.  Divorce laws generally favored men in awarding custody and dividing communal assets.  Legal testimony given by women commonly carried less weight than testimony by men.Reproductive Rights:  There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization on the part of government authorities.Low accessibility and poor quality of family planning services as well as a limited mix of methods hindered access to contraception.  Cultural barriers included a lack of male partner engagement or support for a woman’s decision to use family planning services; lack of decision-making power for women, as women in many cases needed approval from their husbands before using health services, including family planning; and expectations for newlywed couples to have children.  Religious beliefs also hindered access.According to the 2018 Demographic and Health Survey, 55 percent of women gave birth with a skilled health-care professional present.  Lack of quality health care, a limited health workforce, and sociocultural barriers also affected women’s access to skilled health attendants, particularly when no midwives were available.According to the 2016 UNICEF Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, the maternal mortality rate was 550 per 100,000 live births.  Lack of accessible, quality health services, discrimination, gender inequalities, early marriage, and adolescent pregnancy all contributed to the maternal death rate.  According to the UN Population Fund, the adolescent birth rate was 120 per 1,000 girls ages 15-19.The government provided access to sexual and reproductive health services for survivors of sexual violence.  Multisectoral committees at the national, regional, and local levels addressed gender-based violence, including sexual violence.  Committee participants included health professionals, police, and administrative authorities.  Health professionals provided health care, including sexual and reproductive health services, to survivors of sexual and domestic violence.  The UN Population Fund contributed emergency contraception through family planning partner clinics.  Emergency contraception was also included in rape kits.Lack of access to adequate menstrual hygiene supplies or facilities hurt women and girls’ participation in educational, social, and economic opportunities.  According to a Human Rights Watch report, although the government did not ban girls from staying in school during pregnancy and motherhood, religious, cultural, and societal stigma or pressures often led the families of pregnant girls or adolescent mothers to deprioritize their education.																																				Systemic Racial or Ethnic Violence and Discrimination										The country’s population was diverse, with three main linguistic groups and several smaller ones.  While the law prohibited racial or ethnic discrimination, allegations of discrimination against members of all major ethnic groups occurred in private sector hiring.  Ethnic segregation of urban neighborhoods and ethnically divisive rhetoric during political campaigns were common.  The government made little effort to address these problems.In Koundara, Lower Guinea, the minority Bassari community denounced discrimination by government officials who asked them to provide their parents&#8217; birth certificates to prove their citizenship.  Some Bassari individuals alleged that government officials asked them to change their last names to more “Guinean”-sounding names to receive public documents.																																				Children										Birth Registration:  Birth registration was carried out without discrimination, and authorities and partnering organizations collaborated to ensure that birth certificates were made available to all newborns.  Authorities did not permit children without birth certificates to attend school or access health care.According to UNICEF, 65 percent of newborns in Nzérékoré and Labé were registered in the civil registry within the legal deadlines in 2022.Education:  Due to fees or bribes demanded by poorly paid teachers, in households facing limited resources, priority was often given to boys&#8217; education over girls.  Additionally, other expenses related to education, such as school uniforms, books, and supplies, contributed to the overall burden discouraging parents from sending girls who could instead help with housework.  While girls and boys had equal access to all levels of primary and secondary education, approximately 39 percent of girls attended primary school, compared with 52 percent of boys.  Government figures indicated 13 percent of girls completed secondary school, compared with 22 percent of boys.Child Abuse:  Child abuse was a problem and authorities and NGOs continued to document cases.  Child abuse occurred openly, although families ignored most cases or addressed them at the community level.  Authorities rarely prosecuted offenders.The law provided penalties for offenses that exposed children to violence, sexuality, the display or dissemination of obscene images, and messages not intended for children.Child, Early, and Forced Marriage:  The law criminalized early and forced marriage.  The legal age for marriage was 18.  Ambiguity remained, however, because the law referred to customary marriages for children who received consent from both parents or a legal guardian.  According to Girls Not Brides, an international network of civil society organizations committed to ending child marriage, prevalence rates were 47 percent of girls married by age 18 and 17 percent married by age 15.Sexual Exploitation of Children:  The law prescribed penalties for all forms of child trafficking, including the commercial sexual exploitation of children.  The law prohibited child pornography.  The law did not explicitly address the sale, offering, or using of children for commercial sex.  Relevant laws were not regularly enforced, and sexual assault of children, including rape, was a serious problem.  Girls between ages 11 and 15 were most vulnerable and represented more than half of all rape survivors.																																				Antisemitism										The Jewish community was very small and there were no reports of antisemitic incidents.																																				Trafficking in Persons										See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at  https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.																																				Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics										Criminalization:  The law criminalized consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults, which was punishable by three years in prison.  Although there were no known prosecutions under the law during the year, LGBTQI+ individuals reported harassment and abuse by authorities predicated on the law and paid bribes to avoid arrest.  The Office for the Protection of Women, Children, and Morals, a part of the Ministry of Security, included a unit to investigate “morals offenses,” including cases of same-sex sexual conduct.Violence and Harassment:  LGBTQI+ persons faced arbitrary arrest, violence, and harassment by security forces who accused them of disrupting the social order.  LGBTQI+ persons reported being stigmatized by their families.  They were also subjected to sexual assault based on their sexual orientation.  LGBTQI+ persons reported internal displacement to avoid regions where cultural and religious norms put their lives and livelihoods in greater danger.Transgender persons were subjected to “compassionate incarceration” to “protect” them from community violence but were segregated in prisons based on sex assigned at birth; this led to high rates of sexual violence against those “protected” individuals.Discrimination:  The law did not prohibit discrimination by state and nonstate actors based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics.  Religious and cultural stigma existed against consensual same-sex sexual conduct.  The Transition Charter described marriage and the traditional family (to the exclusion of LGBTQI+ families) as the foundation of the country’s society.  There were no official or formal NGO reports of discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sexual characteristics, though societal stigma likely prevented survivors from reporting abuse or harassment.  LGBTQI+ individuals reported discrimination in education, employment, health care, and housing, with those least able to conceal their identity, such as transgender persons and sexual minorities with nonnormative gender presentation, particularly vulnerable.  LGBTQI+ persons also reported that fear of discrimination at health-care facilities dissuaded some from seeking health care.Availability of Legal Gender Recognition:  No processes existed by which individuals could align gender identity markers on legal and identifying documents with their gender identity.Involuntary or Coercive Medical or Psychological Practices:  There were no reports of involuntary or coercive medical or psychological practices specifically targeting LGBTQI+ individuals.  Religious, cultural, and family pressures, however, led to informal attempts to “convert” LGBTQI+ individuals, including by families that regularly forced LGBTQI+ members into marriages with persons of the opposite sex.Restrictions of Freedom of Expression, Association, or Peaceful Assembly:  There were no specifically registered LGBTQI+ organizations, as the government restricted such organizations from registering.  Some public health organizations worked to raise sexual health and HIV and AIDS awareness, as well as to prevent human rights abuses among vulnerable communities, including the LGBTQI+ community.																																				Persons with Disabilities										Persons with disabilities could in some cases access education, health services, public buildings, and transportation on an equal basis with others.  The law prohibited discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities in education, employment, air travel and other transportation, access to health care, or the provision of other government services.  Other elements of the law described the rights of persons with disabilities, such as access to regular, dedicated, or subsidized private schools, government hiring quotas, priority access to government services, and access to public transportation.  The government did not effectively implement the law nor programs to provide access to buildings, information, and communications.  The government provided some information and communication in accessible formats.  The law prohibited discrimination in employment against persons with disabilities.  The Ministry of Social Action and the Promotion of Women and Children was responsible for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities, but it was ineffective.  The government had informal hiring programs for hiring persons with disabilities.  The government provided no support for placing children with disabilities in schools.  Some parents of children with disabilities and children with albinism decided not to continue their education to prioritize resources for family members with better economic prospects.																																				Other Societal Violence or Discrimination										Discrimination against persons with albinism occurred, particularly in the Forested Guinea Region, where, historically, ritual sacrifices and other harmful practices related to witchcraft used persons with albinism or their body parts.  NGOs focused on the rights of persons with albinism continued to raise awareness of discrimination and violence.  The law afforded persons with albinism equal rights to access education, health care, mobility, and employment.  The law also provided penalties for those who encouraged persons with albinism to beg and who sought to use persons with albinism in ritual ceremonies.Mob violence remained a widespread problem and was reported in the local press throughout the year.  In Mamou, Middle Guinea Region, a mob lynched a suspected highway robber on June 8.  The victim, with other bandits, reportedly strangled a man to steal his motorcycle.Laws existed to protect persons with HIV and AIDS from stigmatization.  The law on reproductive health mandated persons with HIV and AIDS receive basic care and a guarantee of confidentiality.  The government relied on donor efforts to combat discrimination against persons with HIV and AIDS in health case, and government efforts were limited to paying state facilities health-care worker salaries but had not fulfilled its commitment to pay community health-care workers.  Most victims of stigmatization were widows abandoned by their families after their husbands died of AIDS.																																					Section 7.													 Worker Rights												    																																																a. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining										The labor code provided workers the right to organize, bargain collectively, join a union, and engage in strikes that could be complete or partial or in other forms which did not necessarily imply a pure and simple cessation of work, provided they were of a peaceful nature.  The law required unions obtain the support of 20 percent of the workforce to represent them.  The law placed restrictions on the free exercise of these rights.  The law mandated that the union organization or the collective filing of the strike notice provide a written notice to the competent authority with the reasons and claims made 10 working days before going on strike.  Employees had the right to cease work completely upon expiration of the strike notice, subject to providing the necessary safety measures and minimum service.  An employee who was required to provide a minimum service and who failed to report for duty could be found guilty of gross negligence.Strikes were permitted only for work-related topics.  Members of the armed forces could not strike.  The military requested work changes through its chain of command.The law protected workers from antiunion discrimination.  The law prohibited employers from taking union membership into consideration when considering decisions concerning an employee’s hiring, firing, and conduct.  It also allowed workers 30 days to appeal any labor decisions and provided for reinstatement of any employee fired for union activity.The Office of the Inspector General of Labor within the Ministry of Labor managed consensus arbitration, as required by law.  An arbitration procedure could be implemented at any time, either at the request of one of the parties to the dispute, or at the request of the minister of labor, particularly if the dispute concerns “essential services.”Penalties for various labor violations ranged from fines to imprisonment, commensurate with penalties for similar crimes.  The government did not effectively enforce applicable laws.  Inspections were not adequate to achieve compliance, and penalties were rarely applied against violators.Worker organizations did not generally operate independently of government or political party interference.  Differences existed among the trade unions, with members accusing each other of supporting employer organizations or the government.  This resulted in some unions split between two leaders.  Companies did not always respect freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.  Hotel workers reported that the government failed to enforce labor laws or penalize employers who violated worker rights.  The International Trade Union Confederation reported that Sheraton Grand Conakry management laid off all its workers and refused to cooperate even during government-mandated negotiations in a labor dispute concerning the firing of two elected trade union leaders in 2020.  In June, workers at the Onomo Hotel Conakry reported that hotel management improperly restricted union elections and forced almost 50 percent of employees without permanent contracts to reapply as subcontracted employees.  Both the Sheraton Grand Conakry and Onomo Hotels previously received development financing with terms outlining performance standards to promote internationally recognized worker rights.																																				b. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor										See also the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at  https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.																																				c. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment										See the Department of Labor’s Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor at  https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/resources/reports/child-labor/findings&nbsp;.																																				d. Discrimination (see section 6)																																														e. Acceptable Conditions of Work										Wage and Hour Laws:  In June 2022, the government increased the Guaranteed Minimum Interprofessional Wage, although this wage rate remained below the World Bank poverty level.The law mandated that the regular work should not exceed 10-hour days or a 48-hour week, and it mandated at least 24 consecutive hours of rest each week, usually on Sunday.  Every salaried worker had the legal right to an annual paid vacation accumulated at the rate of at least two days per month.  Overtime and night wages were a fixed percentage of the regular wage.  The law stipulated a maximum of 100 hours of compulsory overtime a year.Occupational Safety and Health:  The law contained occupational safety and health (OSH) provisions but did not establish workplace health and safety standards.  Moreover, it did not stipulate the safety requirements for certain occupations or for certain methods of work identified in the law.  The employer was required to develop facilities and regulate workflow to preserve the health and safety of workers.  They were responsible for providing employees with personal protective equipment at no cost.  The labor inspector carried out investigations into the causes, circumstances, and responsibilities.  All workers, foreign and migrant, had the right to refuse to work in unsafe conditions without penalty.Each industry was required to have an occupational safety and health plan, though this requirement was rarely enforced.  Despite legal protection against working in unsafe conditions, many workers feared retaliation and did not exercise their right to refuse to work under unsafe conditions.  The government banned wildcat gold prospecting and other mining activities during the rainy season to prevent deaths from mudslides.Wage, Hour, and OSH Enforcement:  The Ministry of Labor was responsible for enforcing labor standards.  The reported number of labor inspectors met International Labor Organization (ILO) standards, but the ILO noted inspectors received inadequate training.  Labor inspector vacancies often went unfilled.  Penalties for violation of the law were not commensurate with similar crimes and were rarely applied against violators.  Enforcement efforts were insufficient to deter violations.Authorities rarely monitored work practices or enforced workweek standards or overtime rules.  Violations of wage, overtime, and OSH standards were common across sectors, and inspectors found occupational health and environmental hazards among artisanal (small-scale) gold mining communities in the northern section of the country.The informal sector included 60 to 70 percent of all workers.  The law and regulations on minimum wages applied to the informal sector but were not enforced.																																				    							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Respect for the Integrity of the Person																																							a. Arbitrary Deprivation of Life and Other Unlawful or Politically Motivated Killings																																																						b. Disappearance																																																						c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and Other Related Abuses																																																				Prison and Detention Center Conditions																																																																																				d. Arbitrary Arrest or Detention																																																				Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees																																																																																				e. Denial of Fair Public Trial																																																				Trial Procedures																																												Political Prisoners and Detainees																																																																																				f. Transnational Repression																																																						g. Property Seizure and Restitution																																																						h. Arbitrary or Unlawful Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence																																																			Section 2. Respect for Civil Liberties																																							a. Freedom of Expression, Including for the Members of the Press and Other Media																																																				Internet Freedom																																																																																				b. Freedoms of Peaceful Assembly and Association																																																				Freedom of Peaceful Assembly																																												Freedom of Association																																																																																				c. Freedom of Religion																																																						d. Freedom of Movement and the Right to Leave the Country																																																						e. Protection of Refugees																																																						f. Status and Treatment of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)																																																						g. Stateless Persons																																																			Section 3. Freedom to Participate in the Political Process																																							Elections and Political Participation																																																			Section 4. Corruption in Government																Section 5. Governmental Posture Towards International and Nongovernmental Monitoring and Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human Rights																Section 6. Discrimination and Societal Abuses																																							Women																																																						Systemic Racial or Ethnic Violence and Discrimination																																																						Children																																																						Antisemitism																																																						Trafficking in Persons																																																						Acts of Violence, Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics																																																						Persons with Disabilities																																																						Other Societal Violence or Discrimination																																																			Section 7. Worker Rights																																							a. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining																																																						b. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor																																																						c. Prohibition of Child Labor and Minimum Age for Employment																																																						d. Discrimination (see section 6)																																																						e. Acceptable Conditions of Work																																																									Tags																					Bureau of African Affairs																								Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor																								Guinea
- Department Press Briefing – February 20, 2024 HomeDepartment Press Briefing – February 20, 2024				hide		if(window.jQuery) {		jQuery( document ).ready(function() {			if (jQuery(".bc_middle").hasClass("collapse")) {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});				jQuery(".bc_hide").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});			} else {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").hide();			}		});	}																										Department Press Briefing – February 20, 2024																																																					February 20, 2024																																																								1:41 p.m. ESTMR MILLER: Good afternoon, everyone. Sorry to be – sorry, thank you. Sorry to be late. Let me &#8212;QUESTION: Are you really?MR MILLER: I am sorry to be late. You think I don’t want to get on with my day as much as you do. (Laughter.) Let me &#8212;QUESTION: I accept your apology.MR MILLER: No, thank you. Let me start with some opening comments. As we mark two years this week since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the brutality of Putin’s regime is increasingly evident both at home and abroad. The weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built was confirmed not only by Aleksey Navalny’s death last week, but also by the fact that the Russian – that Russia detained close to 400 people over the weekend just for mourning his passing.The Kremlin has poisoned Navalny, imprisoned him unjustly, kept him in harsh conditions, and denied him medical care. It is the Russian Government that is responsible for Navalny’s death while in detention. And now, in any other society – in a free, democratic society – we would see openness and transparency as his family seeks more information about their beloved son, husband, and father. But of course, in Russia, openness and transparency remain in short supply.We saw further evidence of Putin – the Putin’s regime’s brutality and disregard for human life in Avdiivka this weekend, where Ukrainian citizens bravely tried to hold off Putin’s illegal invasion while facing rationed ammunition due to dwindling supplies. Unfortunately, Russia made its first notable gains in months. It is now clear – more clear than ever what the stakes are in Ukraine. Without more support from Congress, Ukraine will not be able to replenish its air defenses and ammunition supplies to help protect itself from Russia’s aggression.As the White House announced this morning, at President Biden’s direction, we will be announcing a major sanctions package on Friday to hold Russia accountable for Navalny’s death in prison, and for its actions over the course of the vicious and brutal war they have waged in Ukraine for the past two years. We also renew our call for Congress to pass the national security supplemental funding bill, both to enable Ukraine and its people to defend against the ongoing invasion, and also to advance U.S. national security interests. It is critical that Congress act without further delay.With that, Matt.QUESTION: Thanks. Before we get into the – what you just talked about, I just want to get what you have to say about the detention of a U.S.-Russian dual national.MR MILLER: So with respect to this most recent detention, we are aware of the case. We are seeking consular assistance that has not yet been granted. I’d limit what more we can say because – with respect – because of privacy laws, as I’ve discussed many times from this podium.And I will just say generally, as I think you are aware, Russia – when it comes to dual citizens of the United States and Russia or dual citizenship of any other country and Russia, Russia does not recognize dual citizenship; considers them to be Russian citizens first and foremost, and so oftentimes we have a difficult time getting consular assistance. But we will pursue it in all matters where a U.S. citizen is detained.QUESTION: Okay. And then on the sanctions, why wait until Friday?MR MILLER: It takes time to put these sanctions packages together. There’s &#8212;QUESTION: Well, it’s been two years. I mean &#8212;MR MILLER: It has been two years.QUESTION: Well, it wasn’t a secret that the anniversary was coming up, so &#8212;MR MILLER: And if you have watched, you have seen us roll out a significant number of sanctions packages over that two years. So it’s not like we have delayed anything.QUESTION: Yes. No, no, no, I know. But &#8212;MR MILLER: But we are always looking to impose new sanctions as facts justify when we see sanctions evasion or activity moving to new areas, and to tighten our existing sanctions. And we’ll have more to say on Friday.QUESTION: Okay.MR MILLER: Go ahead, Shaun.QUESTION: Or do you want to go to there? Could I ask – I’ll just ask you if you have any reaction on Evan Gershkovich’s, the latest pretrial detention, that he’s being kept in for another 30 months – excuse me – 30 days?MR MILLER: So with respect to Evan Gershkovich, Ambassador Tracy attended Evan’s hearing and spoke to the press soon after. You may have seen her comments. We’re disappointed but not surprised by the outcome of the hearing. As you’ve heard me say many times from this podium, the charges against him are baseless and Russia should immediately release Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, and the United States will continue to work towards securing both of their freedom.QUESTION: And just one other on Russia, Radio Free Europe. I don’t know if you saw the announcement on that saying it’s undesirable as an organization. Do you have any reaction on the Russian statement?MR MILLER: I don’t have any specific reaction other than to say that you have seen Vladimir Putin oppose the free dissemination of information, the free press inside Russia, and unfortunately that seems to be – seems not surprisingly but unfortunately not moved off that position.QUESTION: And may I follow up on that, Matt?MR MILLER: Let me go to Humeyra first.QUESTION: Matt, can you say at all if the administration is going to use this EO that you guys issued in December that threated basically penalties for financial institutions that help circumvent Russia’s sanctions?MR MILLER: You mean with respect to our announcements that are coming on Friday? I certainly don’t want to preview those.QUESTION: Yes, yes.MR MILLER: And I just – I’d just say in general &#8212;QUESTION: The announcements that are coming on Friday that you guys &#8212;MR MILLER: On Friday that you would like me &#8212;QUESTION: &#8212; have made public on Monday.MR MILLER: That you would like – it’s Tuesday, actually.QUESTION: Oh, Tuesday. Long weekend.MR MILLER: But we made public that we’ll be taking that action. I don’t want to preview what they will be, but as we have said, they will be a major sanctions package.QUESTION: Right. Can I – can I just ask a little bit on Ukraine coming off the heels of Munich Security Conference, where a lot of European leaders and sort of various officials have tweeted their rather negative outlook about the supplemental and Congress and all that? And the Congress is on holiday until mid-March. What exactly is the administration planning how to convince the Speaker, whether you have a Plan B if the supplemental prospects look pretty bleak?MR MILLER: So we will continue to engage with Congress to make clear that it is in the national security interest of the United States to pass this supplemental funding request. You heard the Secretary speak about this last week. One of the points he made is that when it comes to our security assistance to Ukraine, 90 percent of that money is actually spent here in the United States. It benefits American manufacturing. It benefits American technological development.So we will continue to make that case, but I think it’s also the American people that make that case. If you look at the recent polls that came out, the American people overwhelmingly continue to support standing with Ukraine. And there were a number of members of Congress who were in Munich over the weekend and at the end of the last week attending the Munich Security Conference, and they heard directly from Ukrainian officials and from European officials how it is in the national security interest of Europe and also in our transatlantic national security interest. So we’ll continue to make the case, but I would say it’s not just the United States that will continue to make the case.And I will say, as you have heard the Secretary say, there is no other magic plan that we can unveil to support Ukraine. Ukraine will continue to defend itself even in the absence of a supplemental funding request passing Congress. That is without a doubt. You have seem them fight with bravery, you’ve seen them fight with skill, and we fully expect that they will continue to do so and they will continue to make gains against Russia as they have done in the Black Sea. But the situation will be very difficult. When you don’t have the ammunition you need on the front lines, you’re going to be vulnerable. And that’s what we saw over the weekend with the loss of Advika (ph) and – or Avdiivka. And so I think it’s the fact on the ground that will continue to make the case to members of Congress why they need to act, and we hope they will.QUESTION: Would you say that you’re – you still have some sort of confidence that it will pass?MR MILLER: I don’t want to make an assessment on what Congress will do. What we will say and continue to represent is why it is in the national interest of the United States for it to pass this bill. Members of Congress will have to make their own assessments, and it continues to be our belief that if you brought this funding up for an up-or-down vote it will pass the House, and that’s what needs to happen.QUESTION: Okay, I have some Gaza questions but I’ll let people ask questions.MR MILLER: Yeah, go ahead.QUESTION: Matt, a single on Russia. Russian Supreme Court of Tatarstan today rejected Alsu Kurmasheva, RFE/RL reporter’s, request for house arrest. Can we do a quick reaction? And I want to follow up on that.MR MILLER: So we will continue to engage with the Russian Government. This is another one – another matter where they consider a – this to be a dual – well, not a dual citizen. It’s another matter of a dual citizen they – where they rejected that request. We’ll continue to engage with the Russian Government on this question, but I don’t want to speak to a specific court matter.QUESTION: I mean, yesterday marked four months of the arrest of – day before yesterday. Are you telling us that you are out of option here in terms of defending a U.S. citizen even on &#8212;MR MILLER: The safety and security of United States’ citizens overseas is always our first priority, and we always look to protect the safety and security of every United States citizen whether they be in Russia or whether they be in any other country.QUESTION: Is her designation – or designating her arrest as wrongful? Is it still on the table? Are you still considering it?MR MILLER: I just don’t want to make any kind of judgment about a wrongful detention determination. That is something that we always look at when it comes to American citizens who are detained overseas. It is a process. Sometimes it takes time. Sometimes new facts develop that we take under consideration. But I don’t want to put – I don’t want to speak to that any further from here.QUESTION: And going back to Shaun’s question, you &#8212;QUESTION: On this, Alex, RFE/RL too?MR MILLER: Yeah.QUESTION: Russia has labeled Radio Free Europe today as an undesirable organization after designating it as a foreign agent. Do you have any &#8212;MR MILLER: I just – I commented on that a moment ago just to say we have seen Russia continue to crack down on a free press, continue to track down – crack down on transparency. It is quite clear that they do not want their people to have information about what the Russian regime does abroad, what the Russian regime does to its own people.QUESTION: And one more. Russia placed U.S. Senator &#8212;MR MILLER: I don’t think Alex completely yielded the floor.QUESTION: Since you’re talking about Russia.MR MILLER: But go ahead, Michel. (Laughter.)QUESTION: Yeah. Russia placed U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham on Russia’s terrorist and extremist list. Any reaction to that?MR MILLER: So I – we’ve seen obviously the Russian Government designate a broad range of United States officials with various sanctions. I doubt there are any significant ramifications from that, partly because I doubt very much that Senator Graham – who I shouldn’t speak to, he can speak for himself – planned to travel to Russia anytime in the near future.QUESTION: RFE/RL again.MR MILLER: Yeah.QUESTION: Is it fair for us to report back that you just said you will not take any action just for RFE/RL designation?MR MILLER: Alex, you can report back what I just said, not your implication of what I didn’t said – say. And what I said was that the safety and security of American citizens abroad is always our first priority. That is true with respect to this case. It is true with respect to every American overseas. And when it comes to the wrongful detention determination, that is a process that takes time here at the department where we assess the facts, some of which change over time, circumstances change over time, and make a determination that is consistent with the law.QUESTION: Please come back to me on the region?MR MILLER: Janne, go ahead.QUESTION: Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Two questions on South Korea, Cuba, and North Korea. South Korea and Cuba established diplomatic relations last week. Cuba has been a brother country with North Korea for a long time. What is the U.S.’s view?MR MILLER: I don’t have any comment on a relationship between South Korea and Cuba. Obviously, we have always said that countries are free to pick their own – free to decide their own diplomatic engagements and their own diplomatic alignments.QUESTION: Okay, on North Korea. North Korea Kim Yo Jong announced that North Korea is open to talks with Japan if Japan does not interfere with North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests and abduction issues. My question is: If Japan tolerates these and talked with North Korea, what impact do you think it will have on the U.S. and South Korea – North Korea – alliance?MR MILLER: I think that’s a pretty big “if.” I think I will wait to see how the Government of Japan responds to that question before I weigh in any further.Go ahead.QUESTION: You don’t have any &#8212;MR MILLER: I am aware of the North Korean offer.QUESTION: &#8212; any opinions or &#8212;MR MILLER: I have not see the Government of Japan respond, but it will be – continue to be our policy to achieve – that – for full denuclearization of the North Korean – or of the Korean Peninsula. That, of course, has not changed and will not change.QUESTION: Any intention – any intention of North Korea, why they suggest, talked with &#8212;MR MILLER: That is a good – that is a question for North Korea, not for me.QUESTION: Thank you.QUESTION: Sir?MR MILLER: Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah.QUESTION: Okay. Thank you. I have a question about a statement by the UN experts from the UN Human Rights Office yesterday, expressing alarm over allegations of human rights violations to which Palestinian women and girls in the West Bank, in Gaza is subjected to. They said – the UN experts said that Palestinian women and girls in detention have been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault by male Israeli army officers. At least two of them were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence. Have you seen those allegations &#8212;MR MILLER: So &#8212;QUESTION: &#8212; and do you have any reaction?MR MILLER: &#8212; I have seen the allegations. I cannot independently confirm the reports. I will say that we have been clear that civilians and detained individuals must be treated humanely and in accordance with international humanitarian law. We strongly urge Israel to thoroughly and transparently investigate credible allegations and ensure any accountability for abuses and violations, and that will continue to be our position.QUESTION: Have you heard back from your previous call for investigation into the killing of Hind Rajab?MR MILLER: The &#8212;QUESTION: Hind Rajab, killing of.MR MILLER: We have heard that those investigations are underway. We have – it’s our understanding that the investigations have not yet been concluded.QUESTION: Sorry, can I just – on the &#8212;QUESTION: Sir?MR MILLER: Yeah.QUESTION: When you said you had no independent confirmation of what the UN experts found &#8212;MR MILLER: I mean, the underlying &#8212;QUESTION: Yeah, yeah, I get it. But did you ever get – did you ever have confirmation of what Hamas allegedly did to Israelis who were – women and girls who were &#8212;MR MILLER: There are Israeli medical experts who have testified to that, and that is something we consider credible, yes.QUESTION: So you have – you consider those instances to be confirmed, but not what the UN was talking about yesterday?MR MILLER: We have seen this report and we have called for an investigation to confirm whether the allegations are true or not.QUESTION: I get it. And who – and if you’re willing to take a word of an Israeli – and I’m not saying you shouldn’t – but if you’re willing to take the word of Israeli medical experts on what happened to the people who were abducted on October 7th, whose word are you willing to take – if not the UN, who &#8212;MR MILLER: A full, independent, credible investigation &#8212;QUESTION: Would it have to be – would it have to be an Israeli medical expert?MR MILLER: We are calling for that – and, no, of course it would not have to be an Israeli medical expert. A credible medical expert, a credible &#8212;QUESTION: Or a Palestinian &#8212;MR MILLER: A credible – I don&#8217;t want to prescribe who it would be – a credible medical expert that can testify to it would be something we would look at, of course. It would not have to be &#8212;QUESTION: Well, you would look at, but you’d take – you’ve taken &#8212;MR MILLER: I’m not going to – because that’s one where we have seen the outcome of the investigation and are able to opine on it. I’m not going to opine on a matter that hasn’t been conducted.QUESTION: Well, yeah, but you didn’t do your own independent investigation into what I think is pretty much well accepted by everybody that there were instances of rape and sexual assault on October 7th, so &#8212;MR MILLER: And the circumstances very much matter, and in this – in this &#8212;QUESTION: I completely understand that, but I’m just &#8212;MR MILLER: It is a well – it is a well – hold on. It is a well-accepted fact. With respect to this &#8212;QUESTION: Yeah, no, no. It might be a well-accepted fact &#8212;MR MILLER: No, this – hold on. No, let me – just let me finish. It – just &#8212;QUESTION: &#8212; but you’re saying that – but you’re saying that you have what you consider to be independent confirmation that those &#8212;MR MILLER: Let &#8212;QUESTION: &#8212; attacks, those assaults, happened. And in this case &#8212; sMR MILLER: Independent confirmation – it is a well-accepted fact because the investigations produced credible evidence that not just the United States accepted but countries &#8212;QUESTION: Okay.MR MILLER: No, no, let me finish – countries around the world accepted. With respect to these new allegations, we want to see an investigation, and we will, of course, look at the investigation, make our judgements when that investigation is concluded.QUESTION: Okay. So it’s just too early for you?MR MILLER: Correct.QUESTION: Thank you.QUESTION: Could I stay in the Middle East?MR MILLER: Yeah.QUESTION: Matthew, sir?QUESTION: Just – well, a couple things, but of course the Secretary’s on his way to Brasilia. I’m sure you saw the comments by Lula, by President Lula, in Ethiopia this past weekend. Israel’s quite upset with him likening what’s happening there to the Holocaust. Do you have any comment on – both on – both do you have any comment on what Lula said, and do you think the Secretary will raise this with him tomorrow?MR MILLER: So obviously we disagree with those comments. We have been quite clear that we do not believe that genocide has occurred in Gaza. We want to see the conflict ended as soon as practical. We want to see humanitarian assistance increased in a sustained manner to innocent civilians in Gaza. But we do not agree with those comments.QUESTION: And does – do you expect the Secretary to raise this? Will this affect relations &#8212;MR MILLER: I’m going to follow my general rule and never preview what the Secretary plans to raise before he has a chance to do so directly with officials, but we engage with Brazil on a number of issues, and I don’t expect that to change.QUESTION: And just – can we stay on the Middle East? Obviously there was the veto this morning at the Security Council. I know Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield spoke about this at length, but in terms of U.S. engagement with the region, how do you think this affects – I mean, do you think that – a number of Arab states in particular have been calling for a ceasefire. How does this take U.S. diplomacy &#8212;MR MILLER: So look, when it comes to an immediate ceasefire, this has been a place where we’ve had a disagreement with a number of countries in the region for some time now. I don’t think that’s anything that’s new. But that has not stopped us from being able to engage constructively about how to bring this conflict to an end – and not just an end, but a durable end, in a way that ensures that the violence that we saw on October 7th and the death and destruction that has plagued this region for so long is not continued, and that we can finally find a durable peace agreement.And so despite our differences of opinion about the – this UN resolution, we continue to engage with Arab countries about finding a way forward and working on some of the issues that we know we will have to deal with when it comes to establishing long-term peace and security in the region.QUESTION: Can I &#8212;MR MILLER: Let me make sure Shaun’s done before I go &#8212;QUESTION: Yeah, go ahead.MR MILLER: Go ahead. Yeah.QUESTION: Just on Gaza, the mention of temporary ceasefire, the word “ceasefire” in the UN resolution, is this change in wording comes after President Biden used this last week?MR MILLER: “Temporary,” obviously, does. The President made that point last week, and now you’ve seen the draft resolution that we’re working on. But this has been a matter that we have been pursuing for some time, trying to get a temporary ceasefire in exchange for a release of hostages, and something we think is critical to try to achieve and we’ll continue to focus on.QUESTION: Right. Do you think – the administration has obviously been under pressure domestically on this and internationally as well. Do you think that the change in President’s wording but the fact that now it’s in draft resolution has anything to do with those pressures that it’s facing domestically?MR MILLER: No, I think it has to do with how we are responding to the situation on the ground and the situation in the region. We are trying to achieve a temporary ceasefire – or you can call it a pause; you can call whichever name you prefer – to secure the release of hostages. We worked on achieving a humanitarian pause back last year, were successful in doing it. It didn’t go as long as we wanted it to. We got some hostages out; we didn’t get all of them out. We are back now trying to get a longer pause, a longer temporary ceasefire, and secure the release not just to some of the hostages but all of the hostages.And I would say we have made quite clear that we want to see not just a temporary ceasefire, but ultimately an enduring end to the hostilities, and one that ensures that Palestinian civilians are protected, that we get humanitarian assistance to them, and that ultimately the attacks of October 7th cannot be repeated.And that’s one of the reasons why you’ve seen us oppose the resolutions at the UN, not just today but in the past, because we think just an unconditional ceasefire only benefits Hamas, that it would – that Hamas is not going to abide by a full temporary ceasefire. They’re going to continue to hold hostages; they’re going to continue to launch attacks against Israel. They may not do it for a week or so, but they have not forsworn their aims to destroy the State of Israel. And so we’ve oppose that policy, and we think it’s not one that’s effective.We think a negotiated agreement that would get a temporary pause, a temporary ceasefire, is ultimately not just the way to release the hostages and alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people but to give us a pathway to a more enduring end to hostilities.QUESTION: Right. And you’d like to achieve that pause before Ramadan starts?MR MILLER: We would like to have achieved that pause yesterday.QUESTION: Right.MR MILLER: We would like to achieve it today or tomorrow.QUESTION: Yeah.MR MILLER: We want to achieve it as soon as possible.QUESTION: Sure. But how concerned are you that the fighting will continue into Ramadan? Are you doing anything specific about that?MR MILLER: I don’t want to get ahead of the situation, because we are right now in conversations and in negotiations to try to achieve a humanitarian pause. We are still over two weeks away from Ramadan. We would like to get that humanitarian pause before Ramadan begins. We’d like to get it before the end of the week, as I said. We’d like to get it as soon as possible. So that’s what we’re going to continue to try to do.At the same time, we have made clear that Israel should not launch a full military campaign in Rafah unless it has a humanitarian plan that is both credible and realistic, and one that they can execute.QUESTION: Have you seen any indications of that humanitarian plan? And what is the United States prepared to do if they go ahead anyway?MR MILLER: One has not been presented to us yet. I’ve seen reports that one is being developed and will be presented to the Government of Israel this week. I will let them speak, of course, to that. But one has not been presented to the United States, so I, of course, can’t speak to it, and I wouldn’t want to deal with any kind of hypothetical situation down the road.QUESTION: Israel?MR MILLER: Go – Shannon, go ahead.QUESTION: While in Munich, the Secretary raised Russia’s pursuit of an anti-satellite capability in meetings with his Chinese and Indian counterparts. Can you say this is the first time the Secretary has raised such meetings with other countries and whether he hopes to achieve anything by raising the topic with China and India specifically?MR MILLER: So I will say that on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference he did raise Russia’s pursuit of an anti-satellite technology with our allies and partners, but not just our allies and partners – with other countries as well – because as the Secretary made clear, he thinks it’s an issue that should be of concern, not just to the United States but to other countries in the world. And I won’t speak to the details of those diplomatic engagements, but I would just say generally that when you have an issue like this that we think should be of broad concern, not just to the United States but other countries, we, of course, would fully expect that they would use their diplomatic engagements to, as we have done, urge that the pursuit of such a technology be abandoned.QUESTION: Can you say those other countries – did they express concern about the capability as well?MR MILLER: I just don’t want to speak to private diplomatic engagements.QUESTION: Matthew, sir?MR MILLER: Okay. Go ahead.QUESTION: Thank you, sir. Sir, a senior Pakistani official admits to helping rig the vote. He claimed that he changed the election results with a margin of 70,000 votes in favor of Nawaz Sharif, and that those seats were actually won by Imran Khan’s party candidates. What are your views? You already talk about the allegations of rigging and fraud. What are your views on this?MR MILLER: So I saw that report. Any claims of interference or fraud should be fully and transparently investigated – excuse me – in accordance with Pakistan’s own laws and procedures. And that, of course, includes this claim as well.QUESTION: Sir, a number of Pakistani politicians and media analysts in Pakistan have termed these elections most controversial, and asking political leadership to respect Imran Khan’s party’s mandate as the largest group. Would you also like to see the political leadership in Pakistan to respect the PTI’s candidate – mandate?MR MILLER: Again, I don’t want to get – I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off.QUESTION: Sorry.MR MILLER: What was the last piece?QUESTION: I’m – are you also, like, asking the political leadership in Pakistan to respect the PTI’s mandate?MR MILLER: Again, I don’t want to get into an internal Pakistani matter, which I very much believe that the formation of a new government is. But – so that’s a matter that I will leave to Pakistan. But as I said, when it comes to the – any claims of interference or allegations of irregularities, we want to see those fully investigated.QUESTION: Can I just follow up?QUESTION: Different topic?MR MILLER: Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.QUESTION: There was &#8212;QUESTION: Can I – do you mind if I just follow up very briefly on something?QUESTION: Yeah, go ahead.QUESTION: Just on &#8212;MR MILLER: You guys are so nice to each other. Like, all the – (laughter) – you’re just tolerating all these interruptions today.QUESTION: Always cordial.MR MILLER: Huh?QUESTION: Always trying to be. Can I just follow up on Pakistan, though? In relation to the &#8212;MR MILLER: He’s going to be mad if I don’t come back to him now. (Laughter.)QUESTION: I’ll get two.MR MILLER: There you go.QUESTION: X, formerly known as Twitter, has been disrupted in Pakistan in recent days. There have been a number of calls from the Hill in particular for the State Department to raise this. Has it been raised? Do you have a stance on this?MR MILLER: I don’t have any updates on whether it’s something that’s been raised, but we always want to see full internet freedom around the world, and that includes the availability of platforms that people use to communicate with each other.QUESTION: And specifically in Pakistan, is it of concern in light of these allegations about the election?MR MILLER: So I’ll just say as a general matter that we want that to – we want internet platforms to – I don’t know why I keep saying “internat” today, I don’t know where that came from – internet platforms to be available to people in Pakistan and around the world. And I don’t have anything further than that.Nick, go ahead.QUESTION: Thank you. There have been some reports over the weekend that the State Inspector General opened an investigation into Rob Malley and is being put on leave. Do you have anything you can add to that?MR MILLER: So I won’t speak on behalf of the inspector general. As you know, they operate independently and they should be the ones to decide whether to confirm any investigation or not confirm an investigation. I will say that when it comes to inspector general investigations, we always comply with those fully and will continue to do so.QUESTION: And then separately, there’s been some criticism of a cable that the Secretary sent a few weeks ago on gender identity to staff, urging staff to use gender-neutral language whenever possible, and avoid terms like “manpower” and “ladies and gentlemen.” Why do you think a memo like that was needed?MR MILLER: So I will say first of all, when it comes to these types of cables, they all come out with the Secretary’s signature on it – that tends to be standard department practice, has been for years. It doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a memo from the Secretary himself. I would say if you look at that memo, as I have done, it’s a standard government practice to try to encourage just – people just to be respectful of others and use the terms that – with which others are comfortable, and talk to people the way that they would like to be addressed, and nothing more than that.QUESTION: Matt?MR MILLER: Actually, let me go back. Alex, I need – it’s too late to come back to you.QUESTION: Please come back to me, yeah.MR MILLER: You’re right in front, so sometimes I come back, but there are people in the back that need to &#8212;QUESTION: So you’re saying that it is not an order?MR MILLER: It is a – I would like to look at the memo again before – but my understanding is it was a best-practices piece.QUESTION: Okay. Well, you remember there was a little bit of a kerfuffle some time ago – maybe before you were here – when the email system &#8212;MR MILLER: When people’s pronouns were changed for them &#8212;QUESTION: Yes.MR MILLER: &#8212; by mistake. I do remember that.QUESTION: Exactly.MR MILLER: No, yeah. No, this was just encouraging people to be respectful and treat people with – treat people with respect, and address them with the terms that they feel comfortable with.QUESTION: Okay. Well, I mean, does the Secretary or anyone else in the building have an issue with the phrase “ladies and gentlemen?”MR MILLER: I do not have &#8212;QUESTION: Not you personally.MR MILLER: I do – hold on – I do not have any problem with the term “ladies and gentlemen,” and I feel fully confident saying the Secretary does not either.Go ahead.QUESTION: Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Bangladesh regime people involvement in corruption is an open secret, according to a Bloomberg detailed report yesterday. Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, one of the cabinet ministers, is alleged to have built an empire in the UK and U.S. valued at 200 million pounds sterling, equivalent to 1 percent of the country’s foreign reserve. This is just one case among many. How is the U.S. addressing this matter to hold the government accountable and combat corruption globally?MR MILLER: We are aware of these reports and encourage the Government of Bangladesh to ensure that all elected officials comply with the country’s laws and financial regulations.QUESTION: Matt, can I follow up (inaudible)?MR MILLER: Go, go, go, go, go. No, no. Note that the best way to not get called on is to shout out a question while I’m calling on other people. Go ahead. I will come across to this side of the room in a minute.QUESTION: Thank you, Matt. In light of world pressure on Israel to accept a Palestinian state dividing their land with Hamas and Palestinian Authority terrorist organizations, and for Israel not to enter Rafah in Gaza to destroy Hamas there, what is the State Department’s response to Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli cabinet, as well as the entire Jewish population, who are defending their right to live free from terrorism? And a follow-up.MR MILLER: We, of course, agree with Israel’s right to live free from terrorism. If you’ve looked at the repeated comments that Secretary Blinken has made – not just here in the United States, but in Israel itself on his five trips to the region – he has made clear that he supports Israel’s right to ensure that October 7th can never happen again. And more importantly, he is trying to achieve a resolution of this conflict that will ensure Israel has long-term peace and long-term security, including security, of course, from terrorism.QUESTION: Are you going to be wanting to prevent Israel from entering Rafah to take out Hamas there?MR MILLER: What we have said is we do not support an – a full-scale military campaign in Rafah that does not account for the more than 1 million Palestinians who are currently there – people who have nothing to do with Hamas, innocent civilians; men, women, children, the elderly, who in many cases have fled to Rafah from their homes; in some cases, have fled more than once – have fled two or three times to escape the war, the conflict that is raging in Gaza.So we fully support Israel’s right to take a military campaign to Hamas and ensure that the attacks of October 7th cannot be repeated, as I said, but we also want to see civilians properly accounted for, and right now we don’t believe that there is a way to conduct a military campaign in Rafah without moving some of those civilians and properly accounting for their humanitarian needs.QUESTION: What are the reasons of the State Department for not demanding Hamas immediately release all remaining hostages unconditionally?MR MILLER: I think you’ve missed dozens and dozens of statements from the State Department going back to October 7th – well, it’s actually October 8th by the time that we were aware that hostages should be released, and was the first time the Secretary called for the immediate release of hostages. And he has continued to make that clear; as have I, as has the President. We have demanded time and time again that hostages be released immediately and unconditionally.Go ahead.QUESTION: Thanks, Matt. I just wanted to circle back to the verbiage used in the draft – UN draft today. I mean, how important is it that you used the word ceasefire as opposed to an extended pause, which is what you’d been using prior?MR MILLER: I will let other people make those sorts of assessments. From a policy perspective, we want to achieve a temporary stop in fighting. You can call that a ceasefire. You can call that a pause. Ultimately, we want to see the fighting stop so hostages can get out, hostages can be released, and humanitarian assistance can get in.But I should make clear the only kind of temporary ceasefire that is going to achieve a release of hostages is one that’s negotiated. Just calling for a temporary ceasefire is not going to – that Hamas has not agreed to is not going to do anything to get the hostages out, which is why we continue to pursue diplomacy with Israel and with the governments of Egypt and Qatar to try to achieve a temporary ceasefire that would secure the release of hostages. We think that is by far the most productive way forward. It is what achieved a release of more than a hundred hostages last year and what we think should be the productive path for moving forward now.QUESTION: A question about Afghanistan.MR MILLER: Yeah.QUESTION: As you know, the Taliban refused to attend a UN-sponsored conference in Doha that’s concluded yesterday. They didn’t send any delegation, and also they rejected the appointment of a special envoy by UN in Afghanistan. Does the United States still hope to engage with Taliban by considering all of that?MR MILLER: Let me just tell – speak to what we were trying to engage – or what we were trying to achieve by attending this conference. And it’s not surprising that the Taliban, of course, has different objectives. We were trying to achieve a number of things: One, to make clear that Afghanistan should not be a hotbed for terrorist activities that impact other countries; two, a vision for Afghanistan with inclusive institutions in which its diverse groups all feel represented in a state that is truly inclusive; and number three, a concern about the respect of human rights, and in particular the rights of women and girls.So that’s what we’re going to continue to pursue. I shouldn’t – I can’t say I’m incredibly surprised that the Taliban declined the invitation to participate in a meeting with a broad representation from the international community. But I will say, as you’ve heard us say before, that the Taliban are not the only Afghans who have a stake in the future of Afghanistan. We will continue to support giving all Afghans, including, of course, women and girls, a voice in shaping their country’s future.QUESTION: And the Chinese, Russian, and Iranian envoy into the peace meeting, they refused to meet with the Afghan civil society because they were not greeted by the Taliban regime. Do you support this idea, and what’s your take on that?MR MILLER: So I won’t – I won’t speak to the actions of another country, but I will make clear we always find engagement with civil society to be productive. We try to take actions through our diplomacy to empower civil society, and we would certainly encourage every country in the world to pursue that path.Let me &#8212;QUESTION: Follow-up?MR MILLER: Let me go back to – I promised you I’d come to you a minute ago. Go ahead.QUESTION: Me?MR MILLER: Yeah. Well, now I call on you &#8212;QUESTION: Oh, thank you.MR MILLER: &#8212; you don’t want a question, after like jumping in for other people – during other people’s questions? (Laughter.)QUESTION: No, I do. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. I’ll be very respectful. I – before I ask you a question, I have to let you know that Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu was speaking at the Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., last week. He said that the situation in Burma was not getting better, and what worried him was that the refugee crisis and security problem it was creating for Bangladesh and potentially for India could get deeper in coming days. Quote, “It is something we have to watch out for and enable our partners in the region – in this case Bangladesh and India – to cope with those stresses without it boiling over the instability in their countries as well,” over – I mean cross-border instability. What is your opinion on that? Thank you.MR MILLER: I think it was a well-crafted, well-delivered speech, and I don’t have anything to add to it. (Laughter.)Go ahead.QUESTION: Thank you.QUESTION: Wow, going out on a limb there. (Laughter.)MR MILLER: Thank you, Matt.Go ahead.QUESTION: Who?MR MILLER: Yeah.QUESTION: Yeah, thanks. I have two questions. The Houthis have escalated their attacks on ships in the Red Sea during the weekend. One of the attacks targeted or damaged a ship and forced its crew to abandon it. How do you view this escalation and what or how the U.S. will react?MR MILLER: So obviously we continue to condemn the reported reckless and indiscriminate attacks on civilian cargo ships by the Houthis, not just those that were reported to have occurred over the weekend but all those that have been occurring for the past number of weeks. But I just want to mention something specific about one of these attacks this weekend – the attack on the Sea Champion. That ship was bringing corn and other food supplies to the Yemeni people in Aden. These were supplies for the Yemeni people, have nothing to do with Israel, have nothing to do with the conflict in Gaza. That of course is what the Houthis have claimed their attacks on civilian ships are trying to impact.This was a reckless attack on a ship delivering humanitarian assistance to the Yemeni people, and I think it was another sign that the Houthis continue to demonstrate disregard not just for international shipping, not just for supplies that are going to benefit civilians all around the world – in many cases far from the region, but ultimately for their own people. It was a dangerous attack, and the fact that they’re launching these just kind of wanton, indiscriminate attacks – even when they hurt their own people and hurt the provision of supplies to their own people – shows just how reckless their actions have been.QUESTION: And on Lebanon, how do you view the escalation of military operations between Israel and Hizballah? Will the U.S. participate in two conferences that will be held in France and Rome to help increase the Lebanese army capabilities to implement the UN Security Council Resolution 1701?MR MILLER: So we continue to be concerned about the risk of escalation and continue to be concerned about the risk of the conflict widening, and we continue to work to achieve a diplomatic path forward that resolves the legitimate concerns of the Government of Israel and the legitimate concerns of Israeli people who don’t want to move back to the north because they feel that their houses continue to be threatened, their communities continue to be threatened by attacks from Hizballah. So we’re continuing to pursue that diplomatic resolution.As it pertains to these two conferences – or I think maybe in one of the cases, potential conferences – I don’t have anything to add about possible U.S. participation.Let me go back here.QUESTION: Thanks.MR MILLER: Yeah.QUESTION: Thank you so much. I have two questions, one about the irregularities in Pakistan election. From the last Monday briefing you have mentioned that United States raised privately and publicly the irregularities matter with Pakistani officials, but ministry of foreign affairs in Islamabad just in last briefing said they are not aware of any bilateral messaging that has taken place post-elections. Meanwhile, what we observed are U.S. ambassador in Pakistan, just after two days after election, held a meeting with former foreign minister of Pakistan. So do United States directed speaking in Pakistan to have engagements with the officials or the politicians?Secondly, I want to ask regarding the efforts for United States for the Israel-Saudi normalization.MR MILLER: Let me – let me – before we get in – let me ask – let me answer the question you asked, which is I’m not going to talk to private diplomatic engagements, but we have made clear that we want to see any claims of – any – any irregularities or claimed irregularities fully investigated.Go ahead with the second one.QUESTION: So the October 7th is considered as big damage for diplomatic efforts by U.S. in Saudi-Israeli normalization process, so MBS – the crown prince – reminded two-state solution and he also looking for a timeline from U.S. So Netanyahu’s not, like, bothering this two-state solution, this condition, so what is the time frame after the post-Gaza war, what really the damage repair by the U.S. to repair this, as number of Arab nations have reservations on this. So &#8212;MR MILLER: I don’t want to speak to any timetable, but I will say – as, again, you have heard the Secretary say – we continue to work on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, which we believe doesn’t just benefit the Palestinian people but would benefit the Israeli people and would benefit the entire region. That is something we have heard from a number of Arab partners in the region, including, of course, the Government of Saudi Arabia. And one of the things that the Secretary discussed directly with the crown prince and heard directly from the crown prince was that the – Saudi Arabia was not prepared to pursue normalization or was not prepared to agree to normalization, I should say, without the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.Go ahead.QUESTION: Can I just raise the extradition hearing of Julian Assange, which has taken place at the high court in London today, and his lawyers have repeated an allegation saying that there is evidence of – that a plan was discussed to either kill or kidnap Assange while he was in the Ecuadoran embassy in London. Mark Summers KC, Assange’s lawyer, is saying senior CIA officials requested plans; the president himself – that’s President Trump – requested on being provided with options on how to do it and sketches were drawn up. Is there any comment?MR MILLER: No, I – I’m not going to comment on an ongoing extradition matter.QUESTION: Can I just ask a follow-up to that, please?QUESTION: Well &#8212;MR MILLER: Go ahead, Matt. Go ahead.QUESTION: Well – and I mean, I want to go back to what you were talking about a bit earlier, and that is just – the question is whether the administration regards Julian Assange as a journalist.MR MILLER: So with respect to that question, I think I should decline to comment in detail because, as I said, it is an ongoing extradition matter and it’s an ongoing legal matter. This is a case which is under indictment. But I will just say generally that I have never heard a journalist say that, as a legitimate journalistic practice, to help a source hack into a government computer to steal information. It’s not a legitimate journalistic activity to hack into anything to steal government information, so I think I will leave it at that.QUESTION: Well, okay. Well, that suggests, then, that you don’t. I’m – and I want to specifically avoid getting into what the Justice Department has to say about this case. I want to talk about what the State Department believes about his status, Assange’s status, because you guys are self-proclaimed champions of independent, free press. You are all the time saying journalism is not a crime and this kind of thing. So if you believe that what Julian Assange has been doing or was – or did is journalism, I don’t see how you can – I don’t see how that squares with &#8212;MR MILLER: So &#8212;QUESTION: And if you don’t, are you saying, from your comment just now, that you don’t regard him as a journalist, because he accepted or allowed or helped someone hack into computers? Is that – is &#8212;MR MILLER: So again, I’m at a limit to what I can say about an ongoing legal matter that is under indictment. I remember from my days as the Department of Justice spokesperson that it was &#8212;QUESTION: Yes, exactly, which I think has probably colored your personal – your personal reaction to it.MR MILLER: Let me just – let me – no, let me just finish this answer, that it’s not appropriate for government officials to speak at length about matters that remain under indictment. We support an independent, free press in the United States; we support an independent, free press around the world. We feel that an independent, free press not just benefits the people of the United States, it benefits those of us in government by making us work harder, by making us be ready to explain what we’re doing, by making us think through the decisions that we are making and making sure that they fully represent the best interests of the American people. And we think that same process holds true everywhere in the world, and that’s why you see dictators and autocrats and others crack down on independent, free press.At the same time, helping someone hack into – which is a crime; hacking is a crime, right – helping someone hack into a government network or a private network, for that regard, is not something I think any journalist considers to be a legitimate journalism activity.QUESTION: Okay. Do you not think then that what was published as a result of hacks into the government database, especially as it relates to State Department cables, which are – many, many thousands of them, and that were then published by an independent, free press – you don’t see a problem here with the &#8212;MR MILLER: I think &#8212;QUESTION: &#8212; prosecution or attempted prosecution, the indictment, and your stated view that you think that this kind of activity should be protected?MR MILLER: Again, if you look at the conduct that is alleged in the indictment, when it comes to helping someone hack into a government network, that is a very different type of activity.QUESTION: So – but publishing it is not &#8212;MR MILLER: I am not going to get into the ongoing details of what is a – probably gone too far already in discussing this case – the ongoing detail – the details of what is very much a live, ongoing litigation matter.QUESTION: Well, do you not think the publication of these documents, when they came out, back – the original ones, the ones that Chelsea Manning provided to WikiLeaks, and when they were published by The New York Times and El País and all the – and others, do you not think that that helped informed public discussion? Do you not think that those – that that was useful?MR MILLER: So I – let me say this, because I’m not going to speak to that specific case, for the reasons I just articulated. But I will say that two things can often be true when it comes to the publication of classified government documents. It is true that at times the publication of a classified government document, well, will inform the public, and sometimes it will uncover wrongdoing. It’s also true that sometimes the publication of classified government documents serves no underlying purpose and can jeopardize sources and methods that the government uses to keep the American public safe. So it is a very difficult situation. It is a – I think one of the trickiest questions the government faces in navigating this area. But I can tell you that we try to do it as responsibly as we can.All right. Over here. And then &#8212;QUESTION: Good to see you, Matt.MR MILLER: Yeah.QUESTION: And thank you so much for taking. I have two questions, if you will allow. First, I’d like to talk about the anniversary of the war in Ukraine that is coming up. And as you rightly know at the very start of the war African countries – there was sort of an outright split, right, some ambivalence in the support to Ukraine. So I’m seeking your assessment on U.S. efforts – I’m not saying that you – we’ve had this conversation and narrative about is or is the U.S. not trying to ask African countries to pick a side. That’s not what my question is. My question is to ask, while we recognize that garnering international support for Ukraine sovereignty and territorial integrity is important, what over the two years has been your efforts, the U.S., in garnering international support in terms of African countries?And then my second question is on Guinea.MR MILLER: Let me take that one first. So I will say that we have engaged in countries all over the world – not just in Africa, but of course across the world – to urge them to support Ukraine and support its efforts to defend itself from Russian aggression. We think when you see any country’s sovereign borders violated, see its – control of its territory violated, that it threatens all countries around the world. Because it is ultimately the UN Charter that upholds the territorial integrity and sovereignty of every country in the world.And I will just say we – not just because of our efforts, although they have helped, but because I think we’ve seen countries in the world outraged by Russia’s activities – we have seen a number of UN resolutions, including ones that were joined by dozens of African countries, in support of holding those – of upholding those principles of the UN Charter, of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and ultimately finding a comprehensive, just, and durable peace that recognizes those principles.QUESTION: Sure. And then on Guinea, if I may – and this will be my last question to you, Matt – since yesterday, as you may already know, there is no leadership in Guinea. I think there is currently maybe some low-level leadership. They dissolved the government. And so while I appreciate that you will not comment on the internal affairs of another country, I am asking you to see if you can comment on your own efforts and how you might be engaging any stakeholders in Guinea or in that part of the world, for that matter, or any regional organization besides ECOWAS, which may seem more weakened. Are there any other countries that you may be engaging – Angola, South Africa, Kenya – in your efforts in this regard?MR MILLER: Sure. So we are closely monitoring developments in Guinea. We encourage the transition authorities to work with ECOWAS. It’s something we’ve discussed with a number of ECOWAS states and – to continue positive momentum by holding a constitutional referendum and elections in order to complete democratic governance. We remain concerned about media restrictions placed on the Guinean people and calls on the – and call on the transition authorities to ensure that freedoms of peaceful assembly and expression are fully respected, including from members of the press. And we are engaging with a number of countries in the region around those goals.QUESTION: Can I just do one more on Africa?MR MILLER: Yeah. Yeah, one more and then – Humeyra, did you have one?QUESTION: Sorry.MR MILLER: We’ll do that.QUESTION: But just one more on Africa. Rwanda-DRC – you issued a statement on Saturday, I believe it was, on the – so the DRC is alleging Rwandan involvement in the drone attack in – on the airport. Besides the statement, has there been any response from Rwanda? Are you confident that there’s some progress in there? How do you see things going &#8212;MR MILLER: I don’t have any update on the situation since we released that statement over the weekend.QUESTION: But is it – do you find the DRC allegations credible for Rwandan involvement in this?MR MILLER: I don’t have anything to add beyond what we said over the weekend.Humeyra, and then we’ll finish up.QUESTION: Matt, there were some incidents off the coast of Taiwan in the past couple of days. China’s coast guard boarded a Taiwanese tourist boat, and on Tuesday Taiwan drove away a Chinese coast guard boat that entered its waters. Are you guys worried about like any escalating tensions? Have you seen that?MR MILLER: Yeah, we are closely monitoring Beijing’s actions. We continue to urge restraint and no unilateral change to the status quo, which has preserved peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and throughout the region for decades. We urge the PRC to engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan to reduce the risk of miscalculation. And we share with other countries, not just in the region but around the world, an abiding interest in peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader Indo-Pacific region, which impact global security and prosperity.And with that, we’ll wrap for today.QUESTION: Thank you.MR MILLER: Thanks, everyone.(The briefing was concluded at 2:32 p.m.)# # #access ↑access ↑						Tags																					Afghanistan																								Bangladesh																								Brazil																								China																								Cuba																								Guinea																								Israel																								Lebanon																								North Korea																								Office of the Spokesperson																								Pakistan																								Palestinian Territories																								Russia																								Saudi Arabia																								South Korea																								Ukraine																								Yemen
- Announcement on ADAPT initiative in Guinea Matthew Miller, Department SpokespersonAt the 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, President Biden announced the United States would increase political and technical support for democratic transitions through a new African Democratic and Political Transitions (ADAPT) initiative.We are pleased to announce the U.S. government is advancing the ADAPT initiative to support the people of Guinea in their transition to democratic governance by January 1, 2025. ADAPT resources will provide technical assistance for ongoing efforts to draft a new constitution and prepare for free and fair elections, while also laying the groundwork for more effective and inclusive democratic institutions.There is consistent and strong popular support for democracy across Africa, and the promotion of democratic principles and practices are fundamental to the African Union’s Agenda 2063. The United States is committed to surging support to regional bodies, transition governments, democratic and inclusive political movements, and civil society to advance shared democratic goals. The ADAPT initiative will be expanded to other countries as transition governments take concrete and timely steps to transition to democratic governance.
- Guinea National Day Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of StateOn behalf of the United States of America, I congratulate the people of Guinea on the 65th anniversary of your independence.The United States continues to stand with the people of Guinea in their aspirations for democracy. We support the Guinean people in their pursuit of the return of a democratically-elected, civilian-led government, and we reaffirm our commitment to helping achieve that goal throughout this period of transition.On this occasion, we celebrate the many years of partnership with the Guinean people based on shared ideals and mutual respect.
- Nuclear – IAEA Statute – Notification of Deposit of Instrument; Guinea September 19, 2023 Office of Treaty Affairs
- Guinea HomeReportsBureau of Economic and Business Affairs2023 Investment Climate Statements&#8230;Guinea				hide	document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {	if(window.jQuery) {		jQuery( document ).ready(function() {			if (jQuery(".bc_middle").hasClass("collapse")) {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});				jQuery(".bc_hide").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});			} else {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").hide();			}		});	}});																							2023 Investment Climate Statements: Guinea																																																																																												 In this section										/																							EXECUTIVE SUMMARY																																													EXECUTIVE SUMMARY																															1. Openness To, and Restrictions Upon, Foreign Investment																																																									Policies Towards Foreign Direct Investment																																																																											Limits on Foreign Control and Right to Private Ownership and Establishment																																																																											Other Investment Policy Reviews																																																																											Business Facilitation																																																																											Outward Investment																																																																																	2. Bilateral Investment and Taxation Treaties																															3. Legal Regime																																																									Transparency of the Regulatory System																																																																											International Regulatory Considerations																																																																											Legal System and Judicial Independence																																																																											Laws and Regulations on Foreign Direct Investment																																																																											Competition and Antitrust Laws																																																																											Expropriation and Compensation																																																																											Dispute Settlement																																																																			ICSID Convention and New York Convention																																																								Investor-State Dispute Settlement																																																								International Commercial Arbitration and Foreign Courts																																																																																																																		Bankruptcy Regulations																																																																																	4. Industrial Policies																																																									Investment Incentives																																																																											Foreign Trade Zones/Free Ports/Trade Facilitation																																																																											Performance and Data Localization Requirements																																																																																	5. Protection of Property Rights																																																									Real Property																																																																											Intellectual Property Rights																																																																																	6. Financial Sector																																																									Capital Markets and Portfolio Investment																																																																											Money and Banking System																																																																											Foreign Exchange and Remittances																																																																			Foreign Exchange																																																								Remittance Policies																																																																																																																		Sovereign Wealth Funds																																																																																	7. State-Owned Enterprises																																																									Privatization Program																																																																																	8. Responsible Business Conduct (RBC)																																																									Additional Resources																																																																											Climate Issues																																																																																	9. Corruption																																																									Resources to Report Corruption																																																																																	10. Political and Security Environment																															11. Labor Policies and Practices																															12. U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and Other Investment Insurance or Development Finance Programs																															13. Foreign Direct Investment Statistics																															14. Contact for More Information																																																					EXECUTIVE SUMMARY				Guinea is currently governed by the National Committee for Reunification and Development (CNRD), following the 2021 coup d’état led by Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya, who serves as President.  Doumbouya’s government operates under a Transition Charter which supersedes the constitution until a new constitution is promulgated; Guinea’s penal and civil codes remain in force.  A Presidential decree created the National Transition Council, the transition’s legislative body, on January 22, 2022. After much negotiation with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the ruling junta has reached an agreement on a 24-month transition timeline to return to democratic constitutional order, ending on December 31, 2024. The government is relatively pro-West, and there have been large business deals in the energy and mining sectors between the Guinean government and American companies.Guinea enjoys sizeable endowments of natural resources, energy opportunities, and arable land.These seeming advantages have not yet resulted in economic development, and may in fact hinder it, in an example of the famous “resource curse.” Guinea’s economy has been based on extraction of primary resources, from at least the French colonial era and the slave trade before it. This extractive paradigm and legacy of underdevelopment, combined with low levels of education, and longstanding patterns of nondemocratic governance dating back to the colonial era, have limited broad-based economic growth based on value addition, innovation, and productivity as opposed to extractive or rent-seeking investment. At the same time, a sense of national identity and unity and both formal and informal practices of solidarity that tend towards wealth redistribution may prove to be assets for the country’s development, if the government and the private sector can harness them productively.The 2021 coup d&#8217;état, persistent corruption, and fiscal mismanagement make the near-term economic prognosis for Guinea make investment a mixed bag. In this context, Guinea has looked to foreign investment to bolster tax and export revenues and to support infrastructure projects and overall economic growth. The PRC, Guinea’s largest trading partner, dramatically increased its role in years leading up to the coup with a variety of infrastructure investments. Investors should proceed with caution, understanding that the potential for profits comes with significant political risk. Weak institutions mean that investors may secure lucrative concessions from the government in the short term, but these could be open to renegotiation or rescission in the long term. Prior to the coup, former President Conde’s government implemented reforms to improve various aspects of the investment climate. For example, the former government reduced property transfers fees from 2 to 1.2 percent of property value. The time required to obtain a construction permit was reduced and import procedures were improved. Since 2019, Guinea has implemented a permanent taxpayer identification number system that requires all payments to be made by “Real Time Gross System” (RTGS) immediate transfers. Since the coup d’état, the transition government has taken steps to fight corruption and increase transparency and made significant advancements in infrastructure.Endowed with abundant mineral resources, Guinea has the raw materials to be an economic leader in the extractives industry. Guinea is home to a third of the world’s reserves of bauxite (aluminum ore) and bauxite accounts for more than half of Guinea’s present exports. Historically, most of the country’s bauxite was exported by Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee (CBG; Bauxite Company of Guinea) [a joint venture between the Government of Guinea, U.S.-based Alcoa, the Anglo-Australian firm Rio Tinto, and Dadco Investments of the Channel Islands], via a designated port in Kamsar. While CBG still retains the largest reserves, the Societe Miniere de Boke (SMB; Mineral Company of Boke), a Sino-Singaporean conglomerate, has surpassed CBG as the largest single producer of bauxite. New investment by SMB and CBG, in addition to new market entrants, are expected to increase Guinea’s bauxite output significantly over the next five to ten years. The transition government instituted a reference price for bauxite in July 2022, which the Ministry of Mines expects to generate USD one billion in government revenue in 2023.Guinea also possesses more than four billion tons of untapped high-grade iron ore, significant gold and diamond reserves, undetermined amounts of uranium, as well as prospective offshore oil reserves. Artisanal and medium-sized industrial gold mining in the Siguiri region is a significant contributor to the Guinean economy, but some suspect much of the gold leaves the country clandestinely, without generating any government revenue. In the long term, both former President Conde’s government and the transition government project that Guinea’s greatest potential economic driver will be the Simandou iron ore project, which is slated to be the largest greenfield project ever developed in Africa. The transition government reached an ambitious agreement with Rio Tinto and the PRC-backed SMB-Winning Consortium (WCS) in March 2022 to develop the rail and port infrastructure to bring ore from Simandou to market by early 2025. Negotiations continue to operationalize the infrastructure joint venture, though construction should resume on the rail and port corridor in 2023 to maintain the government’s ambitious timeline. In 2017, the governments of Guinea and the PRC signed a USD 20 billion framework agreement giving Guinea potentially USD one billion per year in infrastructure projects in exchange for increased access to mineral wealth.The amended 2013 Mining Code stipulates that raw ore producers in Guinea begin processing raw ore into refined or processed products within a few years of development, depending on the terms of the individual investment and the mandate with the Ministry of Mines and Geology. As the refining mandate has not been enforced, the transition government called upon bauxite concessionaires to solidify refining plans in 2022 and continues to push for alumina refineries. U.S.-based West Africa LNG signed a $300 million investment agreement with the transition government in March 2022, which will provide the steady state power to operate refineries through liquified natural gas. The PRC is reportedly offering coal-based solutions to meet the potential demand.Guinea’s abundant rainfall and natural geography bode well for hydroelectric and renewable energy production. The largest energy sector investment in Guinea is the 450MW Souapiti dam project (valued at USD 2.1 billion), begun in late 2015 with Chinese investment, which likewise completed the 240MW Kaleta Dam (valued at USD 526 million) in May 2015. Kaleta more than doubled Guinea’s electricity supply and for the first-time furnished Conakry with more reliable, albeit seasonal, electricity (May-November). Souapiti began producing electricity in 2021. A third hydroelectric dam on the same river, dubbed Amaria, began construction in January 2019 and is expected to be operational in 2024. The Chinese mining firm TBEA is providing financing for the Amaria power plant (300 MW, USD 1.2 billion investment). If corresponding distribution infrastructure is built, and pricing enables it, these projects could make Guinea an energy exporter in West Africa. In addition, U.S.-based Endeavor began operating Project Te in November 2020, a 50MW thermal plant on the outskirts of the capital. Former President Conde’s government emphasized investment in solar and other energy sources to compensate for hydroelectric deficits during Guinea’s dry season, a priority maintained under the transition government.Agriculture and fisheries hold other areas of opportunity and growth in Guinea. Already an exporter of fruits, vegetables, and palm oil to its immediate neighbors, Guinea is climatically well suited for large-scale agricultural production and export. Nonetheless, the sector has suffered from decades of neglect and mismanagement, lack of transportation infrastructure, and lack of electricity and a reliable cold chain. Guinea is an importer of rice, its primary staple crop.Guinea’s macroeconomic and financial situation is weak. The aftermath of the 2014-2016 Ebola crisis left former President Conde’s government with few financial resources to invest in social services and infrastructure. Lower natural resource revenues stemming from a drop in world commodities prices and ill-advised government loans strained an already tight budget in the years following the Ebola crisis. The IMF disbursed USD 66.60 million under Guinea’s third extended credit facility from 2018 to 2020. In December 2022, the IMF disbursed USD 71 million to Guinea under the food shock window of the rapid credit facility due to food insecurity caused in part by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.A shortage of credit persists, particularly for small- and medium-sized enterprises, and the government is increasingly looking to international investment to increase growth, provide jobs, and kick-start the economy. After Guinea confirmed its first case in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected the well-being of households, particularly those working in the informal sector with limited access to savings and financial services. Violence surrounding the March 2020 legislative election and constitutional referendum, as well as the October 2020 presidential election, all negatively affected Guinea’s growth prospects. Guinea experienced an Ebola epidemic from February to June 2021. Despite its able handling of the epidemic, which kept deaths to a minimum, cross-border trade with Liberia, Ivory Coast, and Sierra Leone was reduced temporarily during the outbreak. The transition government has worked to maintain economic stability since the 2021 coup d’état, though the uncertain political situation further threatens potential growth.Prior to the coup, Guinea passed and implemented an anti-corruption law, updated its Investment Code, and renewed efforts to attract international investors, including a new investment promotion website put in place in 2016 by Guinea’s investment promotion agency to increase transparency and streamline processes for new investors. That said, Guinea’s capacity to enforce its more investor-friendly laws is compromised by a weak and unreliable legal system. Then President Conde inaugurated the first Trade Court of Guinea on March 20, 2018. Transition President COL Doumbouya created the Court to Repress Economic and Financial Crimes (CRIEF) to handle cases involving embezzlement, corruption, and misuse of public funds over one billion GNF (approximately $110,000) in December 2021.To attract foreign investment, the Private Investment Promotion Agency (APIP) and the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Small and Medium Enterprises hosted the second annual Guinea Investment Forum (GUIF) in Dubai in February 2022, following the inaugural event in Guinea in February 2021.Table 1: Key Metrics and RankingsMeasureYearIndex/RankWebsite AddressTI Corruption Perceptions Index2022147 of 180http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overviewGlobal Innovation Index2022132 of 132https://www.globalinnovationindex.org/analysis-indicatorU.S. FDI in partner country ($M USD, historical stock positions)2021$296 millionhttps://apps.bea.gov/international/factsheet/World Bank GNI per capita2021$1,020https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD																																					1. Openness To, and Restrictions Upon, Foreign Investment						    																																																Policies Towards Foreign Direct Investment										Former President Conde’s government had adopted a strong, positive attitude toward foreign direct investment (FDI), an approach that has been echoed by the transition government. In the face of budget shortfalls and low commodity prices, both former President Conde’s government and the transition government have expressed hope FDI will help diversify the economy, spur GDP growth, and provide reliable employment. To that end, former President Conde’s government reduced land transfer fees, and improved procedures for import and construction permits. Guinea does not discriminate against foreign investors, with the exception of a prohibition on foreign media ownership. One area of concern is that mining companies have negotiated different taxation rates despite mining code requirements. In some instances, short-term tax breaks end up being costly for the investor as they are then expected to “contribute” resources like electrical energy or roadbuilding as an informal quid pro quo for the lighter tax burden. According to the 2022 World Investment Report, FDI into Guinea decreased from USD 176 million in 2020 to 173 million in 2021. The Chambre des Mines (Chamber of Mines) serves as a government-sanctioned advisory organization that includes Guinea’s major mining firms. Guinea’s Agency for the Promotion of Private Investment (APIP) provides support in the following areas:Create and register businesses;Facilitate access to incentives offered under the investment code;Provide information and resources to potential investors;Publish targeted sector studies and statistics;Provide training and technical assistance; andFacilitate solutions for investors in Guinea’s interior.Since the September 2021 coup d’état, APIP falls under the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Small and Medium Enterprises.More information about APIP can be found at:  http://apip.gov.gn/ 																																				Limits on Foreign Control and Right to Private Ownership and Establishment										Investors can register under one of four categories of business in Guinea. More information on the four types of business registration is available at  http://invest.gov.gn/page/create-your-company . There are no general limits on foreign ownership or control, and 100 percent ownership by foreign firms is legal in most sectors. Foreign ownership of print media, radio, and television stations is not permitted. The 2013 Mining Code gives the government the right to a 15 percent interest in any major mining operation in Guinea (the government decides when an operation has become large enough to qualify). Mining and media notwithstanding, there are no sector-specific restrictions that discriminate against market access for foreign investment. Despite this lack of official discrimination, many enterprises have discovered the licensing process to be laden with bureaucratic delays that are usually dealt with by paying consultant fees to help expedite matters. The U.S. Embassy may be able to advocate on behalf of American companies when it is aware of excessive delays.According to the Investment Code, the inter-ministerial Investment Review Committee has a role in reviewing requests for approval of foreign investment and for monitoring companies&#8217; efforts to comply with investment obligations. APIP hosts the secretariat for this committee, which grants investment approvals and verifies investment conformity with the Investment Code. The government gives approved companies, especially industrial firms, the use of the land necessary for projects, with the duration and conditions of use set out in the terms of the approval. The land and associated buildings belong to the State but can also be rented by or transferred to another firm with government approval.																																				Other Investment Policy Reviews										There has been no investment policy review conducted by the UN Conference on Trade and Development or the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development within the past several years. The World Trade Organization (WTO) last conducted a review of Guinea in 2018. The 2018 report can be viewed here:  https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/tp470_e.htm .																																				Business Facilitation										APIP promotes investment, helps register businesses, assists with the expansion of local companies, and works to improve the local business climate. APIP maintains an online guide for potential investors in Guinea (http://apip.gov.gn/). Business registration can be completed in person at APIP’s offices in Conakry and across the country. An online platform is available to notaries:  https://synergui.apipguinee.com/fr/utilisateurs/register/ . The only internationally accredited business facilitation organization that assesses Guinea is the Global Enterprise Registration (GER.co), which gives Guinea’s business creation/investment website a 6/10 rating for 2021. It takes roughly seventy-two hours to register a business. APIP’s services are available to both Guinean and foreign investors. The “One Stop Shop” at APIP’s Conakry office can provide small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) with requisite registration numbers, including tax administration numbers and social security numbers. Notaries are required for the creation of any other type of enterprise.An SME in Guinea is defined as a business with less than 50 employees and revenue less than 500 million Guinean francs (GNF) (around USD 50,000). SMEs are taxed at a yearly fixed rate of GNF 15 million (USD 1,500). Administrative modalities are simplified and funneled through the “One Stop Shop.”																																				Outward Investment										Guinea does not formally promote outward investment, though the government does not restrict domestic investors from investing abroad.																																												2. Bilateral Investment and Taxation Treaties						    																						Guinea has bilateral investment agreements with Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, China, Egypt, France, The Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Italy, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Serbia, South Africa, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Although Guinea does not have a bilateral investment treaty or free trade agreement with the United States, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the United States signed a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) in May 2014. There is no Bilateral Tax Treaty between Guinea and the United States. The TIFA created a Council on Trade and Investment responsible for identifying and removing trade impediments between the United States and ECOWAS countries. Guinea is not a member of the OECD Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting.																																		3. Legal Regime						    																																																Transparency of the Regulatory System										Since February 2022, the National Transition Council (CNT) has served as Guinea’s legislative body, tasked by the CNRD to draft a new constitution and recommend an electoral timeline to return to democratic and civilian rule. All laws relevant to international investors are posted (in French) on invest.gov.gn. When investing, it is important to engage with all levels of government to ensure each authority is aware of expectations and responsibilities on both sides.Guinea has had an independent Supreme Audit Institution since 2016. The institution is charged with making available information on public finances. The institution presented its first 2016 activities report in January 2018. The institution presented the 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 activities report to the President of CNT in February 2022.Guinea’s 2013 amended Mining Code commits the country to increasing transparency in the mining sector. In the code, the government commits to awarding mining contracts by competitive tender and to publish all past, current, and future mining contracts for public scrutiny. Members of mining sector governing bodies and employees of the Ministry of Mines are prohibited from owning shares in mining companies active in Guinea or their subcontractors. Each mining company must sign a code of good conduct and develop and implement a corruption-monitoring plan. There is a public database of mining contracts designed by the Natural Resource Governance Institute ( http://www.contratsminiersguinee.org/ ).The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) ensures greater transparency in the governance of Guinea’s natural resources and full disclosure of government revenues from its extractives sector. The EITI standard aims to provide a global set of conditions to ensure greater transparency of the management of a country’s oil, gas, and mineral resources. EITI reiterates the need to augment support for countries and governments that are making genuine efforts to address corruption but lack the capacity and systems necessary to manage the businesses, revenues, and royalties derived from extractive industries effectively. Guinea requires mining companies to file environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures.Guinea was accepted as EITI compliant by the international EITI Board at its meeting in Mexico City on July 2, 2014. As an EITI country, Guinea must disclose the government&#8217;s revenues from natural resources. Guinea completed its most recent report in April 2022 for the 2019-2020 reporting period. The report is located at:  https://eiti.org/documents/guinea-2019-2020-eiti-report While Guinea’s laws promote free enterprise and competition, there is often a lack of transparency in the law’s application. Business owners openly assert that application procedures are sufficiently opaque to allow for corruption, and regulatory activity is often instigated due to personal interests.Every year Guinea publishes budget documents and debt obligations. The yearly enacted budgets are published online at:  https://mbudget.gov.gn/lois-de-finances/ .																																				International Regulatory Considerations										Guinea has historically been a member of ECOWAS, but not a member of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) and as such has its own currency. At the beginning of 2017, Guinea adopted ECOWAS’s Common Exterior Tariff (TEC), which harmonizes Guinea’s import taxes with other West African states and eliminates the need for assessing import duties at Guinea’s land border crossings, though, sometimes it is difficult to get the required certificates to export under these ECOWAS exemptions. Guinea is a member of the WTO and is not party to any trade disputes. Since the September 2021 coup, the African Union and ECOWAS have suspended Guinea’s memberships.																																				Legal System and Judicial Independence										The legal system handles domestic cases involving foreign investors. Guinea’s legal system is codified and largely based upon French civil law. Under former President Conde, the judicial system was reported to be generally understaffed, corrupt, and opaque. Accounting practices and bookkeeping in Guinean courts are frequently unreliable. U.S. businesspersons should exercise extreme caution when negotiating contract arrangements and do so with proper local legal representation. Although the current transition charter, former constitution, and laws provide for an independent judiciary, in practice, the judicial system lacks independence and is underfunded, inefficient, and portrayed as corrupt in the local press. Budget shortfalls, a shortage of qualified lawyers and magistrates, nepotism, and ethnic bias contribute to the judiciary’s challenges.After the September 2021 coup, Guinea’s penal and civil code remains in force. The transition government maintained the existing legal structure and stated that “justice will be the compass guiding every Guinean citizen.” Transition President COL Doumbouya created the Court to Repress Economic and Financial Crimes (CRIEF) to handle cases involving embezzlement, corruption, and misuse of public funds over one billion GNF (approximately $110,000) in December 2021.There are few international investment lawyers accredited in Guinea and it is a best practice to include international arbitration clauses in all major contracts. U.S. companies have identified the absence of a dependable legal system as a major barrier to investment. Despite dispute settlement procedures set forth in Guinean law, business executives complain of the glacial pace of the adjudication of business disputes. Most legal cases take years and significant legal fees to resolve. In speaking with local business leaders, the general sentiment is that any resolution occurring within three to five years might be considered quick.In many cases, the government does not meet payment obligations to private suppliers of goods and services, either foreign or Guinean, in a timely fashion. Arrears to the private sector are a major issue that is often ignored. There is no independent enforcement mechanism for collecting debts from the government, although some contracts have international arbitration clauses. The government, while bound by law to honor judgments made by the arbitration court, often actively influences the decision itself.Although the situation has improved recently, Guinean, and foreign business executives have publicly expressed concern over the rule of law in the country. In 2014, high-ranking members of the military harassed foreign managers of a telecommunications company because they did not renew a contract. American businesses experience long delays in getting required signatures and approvals from government ministries, and in some cases the presidency, under both former President Conde’s government and the transition government. Some businesses have been subject to sporadic harassment from tax authorities and demands for donations from military and police personnel.																																				Laws and Regulations on Foreign Direct Investment										The National Assembly ratified an Investment Code regulating FDI in May 2015. Developed in cooperation with the Work Bank and IMF, the code harmonizes Guinea’s FDI regulations with other countries in the region and broadens the definition of FDI. The code also allows for direct agreements between investors and the State. Other important legislation related to FDI includes the Procurement Code, the BOT (Build Operate Transfer, now Public Private Partnership or PPP) Law, and the Customs Code. An October 2017 Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) law replaced the earlier BOT law, providing a clearer, updated, and more secure legal, regulatory, and institutional framework for PPP projects. Guinea’s investment promotion agency has a website ( www.invest.gov.gn ) to increase transparency and streamline investment procedures.APIP launched a website in 2016 that lists information related to laws, rules, procedures, and registration requirements for foreign investors, as well as strategy documents for specific sectors  http://invest.gov.gn . Further information on APIP’s services is available at  https://apip.gov.gn/ . APIP has a bilingual (English and French) staff and is designed to be a clearinghouse of information for investors.																																				Competition and Antitrust Laws										There are no agencies that review transactions for competition-related concerns.																																				Expropriation and Compensation										Guinea’s Investment Code states that the government will not take any steps to expropriate or nationalize investments made by individuals and companies, except for reasons of public interest. It also promises fair compensation for expropriated property.In 2011, the former President Conde’s government claimed full ownership of several languishing industrial facilities in which it had previously held partial shares as part of several joint ventures—including a canned food factory and processing plants for peanuts, tea, mangoes, and tobacco—with no compensation to the private sector partner. Each of these facilities was privatized under opaque circumstances in the late 1980s and early 1990s. By expropriating these businesses, which the Conde government deemed to be corrupt and/or ineffective, and putting them to public auction, Guinea hoped to correct past mistakes and put the assets in more productive hands. During the 1990s, a U.S. investor acquired a 67 percent stake in an explosives and munitions factory from a Canadian entity. The Guinean government owned the remaining 33 percent. From 2000 to 2008, the government halted manufacturing at the factory, nationalizing the factory in 2010.While there had not been recent large-scale expropriation cases by the end of former President Conde’s administration, some mining concession contracts have had their initial award revoked and were sold to another bidder. In 2008, the previous regime of Lansana Conte stripped Rio Tinto of 50 percent of its concession of the Simandou iron ore mine and sold it to another company. Since March 2022, the transition government has seized property believed to belong to the state and inappropriately sold under former Presidents Toure, Conte, and Conde’s governments, in some cases demolishing houses and buildings on the disputed land before legal challenges were exhausted.																																				Dispute Settlement																										ICSID Convention and New York Convention						Guinea is a member of the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), an autonomous institution established under the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of other States ( https://icsid.worldbank.org/en/Pages/about/default.aspx ). Guinea is also a member of the New York Convention, which applies to the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards and the referral by a court to arbitration. Guinea has no specific domestic legislation providing for enforcement of awards under the 1958 New York Convention and/or under the ICSID Convention ( http://www.newyorkconvention.org ).						Investor-State Dispute Settlement						The Investment Code states that the competent Guinean judicial authorities shall settle disputes arising from interpretation of the Code in accordance with the law and regulations and provides several avenues by which to seek arbitration. In practice, however, fair settlements may be difficult to obtain. The transition charter mandates an independent judiciary, although many business owners and high-level government officials frequently claim that poorly trained magistrates, high levels of corruption, and nepotism plague the administration of justice. Guinea established an arbitration court in 1999, independent of the Ministry of Justice, to settle business disputes in a less costly and more expedient manner. The Arbitration Court is based upon the French system, in which arbitrators are selected from among the Guinean business sector, rather than from among lawyers or judges, and are supervised by the Chamber of Commerce. All parties must agree for their case to be settled in the arbitration court. In general, Guinea’s arbitration court has a better reputation than the judicial court system for settling business disputes.						International Commercial Arbitration and Foreign Courts						Guinea is a member of the Organisation pour l’Harmonisation du Droit des Affaires en Afrique (Organization for the Harmonization of Commercial Law in Africa), known by its French initials, OHADA, which allows investors to appeal legal decisions on commercial and financial matters to a regional body based in Abidjan. The organization also seeks to harmonize commercial law, debt collection, bankruptcy, and secured transactions throughout the OHADA region. The treaty superseded the Code of Economic Activities and other national commercial laws when it was ratified in 2000, though many of the substantive changes to Guinean law have yet to be implemented. U.S. companies seeking to do business in Guinea should be aware that under OHADA, managers may be held personally liable for corporate wrongdoing. See the OHADA website for specific OHADA rules and regulations ( http://www.ohada.com ).																										Bankruptcy Regulations										Guinea, as a member of OHADA, has the same bankruptcy laws as most West African francophone countries. OHADA’s Uniform Act on the Organization of Securities enforces collective proceedings for writing off debts and defines bankruptcy in articles 227 to 233. The Uniform Act also distinguishes fraudulent from non-fraudulent bankruptcies. There is no distinction between foreign and domestic investors. The only distinction made is a privilege ranking that defines which claims must be paid first from the bankrupt company’s assets. Articles 180 to 190 of OHADA’s Uniform Act define which creditors are entitled to priority compensation. Bankruptcy is only criminalized when it occurs due to fraudulent actions and leaves criminal penalties to national authorities. Non-fraudulent bankruptcy is adjudicated through the Uniform Act.																																												4. Industrial Policies						    																																																Investment Incentives										The Investment Code provides preferential tax treatment for investments meeting certain criteria (See Screening of FDI). Some mining companies currently benefit from preferential tax treatment. Other exemptions can be agreed to during contract negotiations with the government. The government’s priority investments categories include promotion of small- and medium-sized Guinean businesses, development of non-traditional exports, processing of local natural resources and local raw materials, and establishment of activities in economically less developed regions. Priority activities include agricultural promotion, especially of food, and rural development; commercial farming involving processing and packaging; livestock, especially when coupled with veterinary services; fisheries; fertilizer production, chemical or mechanical preparation and processing industries for vegetable, animal, or mineral products; health and education-related businesses; tourism facilities and hotel operations; socially beneficial real estate development; and investment banks or any credit institutions settled outside specified population centers. Detailed information on each of these opportunities is available at  http://invest.gov.gn Neither former President Conde’s government nor the transition government provide incentives for businesses owned by underrepresented investors, such as women.																																				Foreign Trade Zones/Free Ports/Trade Facilitation										Guinea currently has no foreign trade zones or free ports. In 2017, a presidential decree created a special economic zone in the Boke corridor of western Guinea, though this has yet to be operationalized.																																				Performance and Data Localization Requirements										Under the revised 2013 Mining Code, mining companies are required to employ Guinean citizens as a certain percentage of their staff, to eventually transition to a Guinean country director, and to award a certain percentage of contracts to Guinean-owned firms. The percentage varies based on employment category and the chronological phase of the project. The Mining Code requires that 20 percent of senior managers be Guinean; however, the Code does not define what constitutes senior management. The Code also aims to liberalize mining development and promote investment. In 2013, the Code called for the creation of a Mining Promotion and Development Center, a One Stop Shop for mining administrative processes for investors, which opened in May 2016. Guinea has no forced localization policy related to the use of domestic content in goods or technology, and there are no requirements for foreign IT providers to turn over source code or provide access to surveillance or to store data within Guinea.The transition government has prioritized the need for significant local content in all government procurements, passing a law codifying local content requirements in September 2022. The law requires significant local employment throughout companies with government contracts to support skill transfer and economic integration. The law also includes minimum requirements to use local suppliers for service contracts.																																												5. Protection of Property Rights						    																																																Real Property										The Estate and Land Tenure Code of 1992 provides a legal base for documentation of property ownership. Mortgages are nearly non-existent in Guinea. As with ownership of business enterprises, both foreign and Guinean individuals have the right to own property. However, enforcement of these rights depends upon an inefficient Guinean legal and administrative system. It is not uncommon for the same piece of land to have several overlapping deeds. Furthermore, land sales and business contracts generally lack transparency. Only about 2.5 percent of the population has title to real property. The Ministry of Urban Development, Housing, and Regional Planning is developing an online platform that will facilitate the registration of land titles and reduce waiting times to about five days. The Ministry of Urban Development, Housing, and Regional Planning launched the Building Permit One-Stop-Shop in February 2022 to reduce building permit procurement processing ( https://habitatguinee.org/permis-de-construire-2/ ).																																				Intellectual Property Rights										Guinea is not included in the United States Trade Representative (USTR) Special 301 Report or the Notorious Markets List.Guinea is a member of the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). OAPI is a signatory to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the Patent Cooperation Treaty, the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), and several other intellectual property treaties. Guinea modified its intellectual property rights (IPR) laws in 2000 to bring them into line with established international standards. There have been no formal complaints filed on behalf of American companies concerning IPR infringement in Guinea. However, it is not certain that an affirmative IPR judgment would be enforceable, given the general lack of law enforcement capability. The Property Rights office in Guinea is severely understaffed and underfunded. For additional information about national laws and points of contact at local IP offices, please see WIPO’s country profiles at  https://www.wipo.int/directory/en/contact.jsp?country_id=67&amp;type=ADMIN .																																												6. Financial Sector						    																																																Capital Markets and Portfolio Investment										Commercial credit for private enterprises is difficult and expensive to obtain in Guinea. The FY 2023 Millennium Challenge Corporation score for Access to Credit in Guinea reached 46 percent, increasing from 30 percent in FY 2022.Guinea adopted a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) law in 1998, but the law was never fully implemented as the government failed to adopt the decree necessary for its implementation.  An October 2017 Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) law replaced the earlier BOT law, providing a clearer, updated, and more secure legal, regulatory, and institutional framework for PPP projects.  Guinea’s investment promotion agency has a website ( www.invest.gov.gn  to increase transparency and streamline investment procedures.  However, in practice, businesses often wait months or years to receive final approvals from one ministry or another or the President, depending on the sector.  Guinea’s capacity to enforce its more investor-friendly laws is compromised by a weak and unreliable legal system.  Some especially large-scale enterprises or extractives industry firms must wait for final permission from the President himself to begin operations.  These facts make personal relationships with high-ranking officials desirable and indeed generally essential, though as mentioned above, this brings the risk of a project’s becoming associated with specific individuals or administrations, and thus subject to subsequent rescission.Guinea updated its Investment Code in 2015 and renewed efforts to attract international investors. The Investment Code allows income derived from investment in Guinea, the proceeds of liquidating that investment, and the compensation paid in the event of nationalization, to be transferred to any country in convertible currency. The legal and regulatory procedures, based on French civil law, are not always applied uniformly or transparently.Individuals or legal entities making foreign investments in Guinea are guaranteed the freedom to transfer the original foreign capital, profits resulting from investment, capital gains on disposal of investment, and fair compensation paid in the case of nationalization or expropriation of the investment to any country of their choice. The Guinean franc is subject to a managed floating exchange rate. The few commercial banks in Guinea are dependent on the Central Bank (BCRG) for foreign exchange liquidity, making large transfers of foreign currency difficult, though a robust informal foreign exchange market eases some of the difficulty.Laws governing takeovers, mergers, acquisitions, and cross-shareholding are limited to rules for documenting financial transactions and filing any change of status documents with the economic register. There are no laws or regulations that specifically authorize private firms to adopt articles of incorporation that limit or prohibit investment.																																				Money and Banking System										Guinea&#8217;s financial system is small and dominated by the banking sector. It comprises 20 active banks, 13 insurance companies and 20 microfinance institutions. Guinea’s banking sector is overseen by the Central Bank (BCRG), which also serves as the agent of the government treasury for overseeing banking and credit operations in Guinea and abroad. The BCRG manages foreign exchange reserves on behalf of the State. The Office of Technical Assistance of the Department of the Treasury assessed that Guinea does not properly manage debt and that its treasury is too involved in the process, although improvements made in 2017-2018 point to a better future. Further information on the BCRG can be found in French at  http://www.bcrg-guinee.org .Due to the difficulty of accessing funding from commercial banks, small commercial and agricultural enterprises have increasingly turned to microfinance, which has been growing rapidly with a net increase in deposits and loans. The quality of products in the microfinance sector remains mediocre, with bad debt accounting for 10 percent of loans with approximately six percent of gross loans outstanding.Guinea plans to broaden the country’s small and medium enterprises (SME) base through investment climate reform, improved access to finance, and the establishment of SME growth corridors. Severely limited access to finance (especially for SMEs), inadequate infrastructure, deficiencies in logistics and trade facilitation, corruption and the diminished capacity of the government, inflation, and poor education of the workforce has seriously undermined investor confidence in Guinean institutions. Guinea’s weak enabling environment for business, its history of poor governance, erratic policy, and inconsistent regulatory enforcement exacerbate the country’s poor reputation as an investment destination. As a result, private participation in the economy remains low and firms’ productivity measured by value added is one of the lowest in Africa. Firms’ links with the financial sector are weak: only 3.9 percent of firms surveyed in the 2016 World Bank Enterprise survey had a bank loan.Credit to the private sector is low, at around 10 percent of GDP in 2022. Commercial banks are reluctant to extend loans due to the lack of credit history reporting for potential borrowers. Through the Central Bank, Guinea is in the process of establishing a credit information bureau to overcome this asymmetry of credit information. Despite the pandemic and September 2021 coup, the banking sector remains liquid and solvent with limited credit available to the private sector. Heavy government borrowing drained the excess liquidity and crowded out private sector credit in 2021, though the partial repayment of government arrears in 2022 made room for banks to provide new credit. Despite the COVID-19 slowdown and political instability, private sector credit grew by 13.6 percent on average from January to August 2022.Guinea is a cash-based society driven by trade, agriculture, and the informal sector, which all function outside the banking sector. The banking sector is highly concentrated in Conakry and is technologically behind. Banks in Guinea tend to favor short-term lending at high interest rates. In collaboration with the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Technical Assistance, the Central Bank began planning to implement a bank deposit insurance scheme. In 2019, the Central Bank set the deposit coverage limit at 85 million GNF (approximately USD 10,000) and began to collect premiums from commercial banks. The Central Bank has plans to progressively increase the deposit coverage limit to 120 million GNF (approximately USD 14,000) in the years to come.While the microfinance sector grew strongly from a small base, it was hit hard during the 2014-2016 Ebola crisis. Currently it is not generally profitable and needs capacity and technology upgrades. Furthermore, many microfinance institutions struggle to meet higher minimum capital requirements imposed by the Central Bank since 2019. This heightened financial hurdle will likely lead to a consolidation of the microfinance sector. The efficiency and use of payment services by all potential users needs to be improved, with an emphasis on greater financial inclusion.The penetration of digital cellphone fund transfers is increasing. Six foreign e-money (or mobile banking) institutions offer services to digitize payments and improve access to financial services in underserved and rural segments of the population, with a seventh company considering operations in Guinea. Nonetheless, many operations processed by these e-money institutions remain cash-in cash-out transactions within a single network.To modernize payment methods, the transition government is continuing an initiative of former President Conde’s administration to implement a national switch &#8212; a nationwide platform that will interface all electronic payment systems and facilitate payment processing between service providers. The Central Bank selected a service provider and will operationalize the national switch in June 2023.Generally, there are no restrictions on foreigners’ ability to establish bank accounts in Guinea. EcoBank is the preferred bank for most U.S. dealings with Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act (FACTA) reporting requirements. With the acquisition of a majority stake in BICIGUI (Banque Internationale pour le Commerce et l’Industrie de la Guinee) in July 2021, Vista Bank (now VistaGui after the acquisition) became the largest bank in Guinea, a first on the African continent for a U.S.-owned financial institution.																																				Foreign Exchange and Remittances																										Foreign Exchange						There are no restrictions or limitations placed on foreign investors for converting, transferring, or repatriating funds associated with an investment. Although there have been no recent changes to remittance policies, it is difficult to obtain foreign exchange in Guinea. Guinea has experienced significantly weakened liquidity levels over the last several years due to government mismanagement, populist policies, corruption, and a decrease in mining revenue due to lower global commodity prices. Commercial banks’ liquidity levels are affected by tight reserve requirements (lowered from 16 to 15 percent of deposits in of March 2022) that are in line with IMF performance criteria.Until December 2015, the exchange rate was managed by the Central Bank (BCRG) and held to a four percent variance from the unofficial rate. Between 2013 and 2015, the Guinean franc maintained a value of between 7,000 and 7,500 GNF/USD. A weakened economy resulting from low commodity prices caused the GNF to depreciate from an average of 7,000 GNF/USD in early 2015. In late 2015, the unofficial rate reached a value ten percent higher than the official rate, during which time Guinea nearly exhausted its foreign currency reserves. The IMF recommended the BCRG float the GNF, and the official rate jumped to over 9,000 GNF/USD by March 2016. Since 2020, the BCRG has limited its intervention in the foreign exchange market and implemented a rules-based intervention strategy for a de-jure managed float regime, though additional information on how the BCRG is implementing this regime is required for the IMF to change its de facto classification from crawl-like. This monetary policy has targeted preserving liquidity in the banking sector while containing inflation.More recently, the GNF gradually depreciated from around 9,400 GNF/USD in early 2020 to 10,098 GNF/USD in February 2021 before leveling off to approximately 9,700 GNF to one U.S. dollar from May to October 2021. Beginning in mid-October 2021, the GNF began appreciating against the U.S. dollar, which has continued through August 2022. As of April 2023, the GNF exchange rate against the U.S. dollar has held steady at approximately 8,500 GNF/USD since August 2022.						Remittance Policies						Guinea has no limitations on the conversion and transfer of money or the repatriation of capital and earnings, including branch profits, dividends, interest, royalties, or management or technical service fees. The Central Bank (BCRG) needs to be informed of any major transfers, and the wait time to remit investment returns is less than 60 days. Guinea is a member of the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa but is not included on the Financial Action Task Force.There are no limits on the conversion of U.S. dollars to Guinean francs.																										Sovereign Wealth Funds										Guinea does not have a sovereign wealth fund.																																												7. State-Owned Enterprises						    																						While all Guinea’s public utilities (water and electricity) are state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the former Conde administration proposed permitting private enterprises to operate in this sphere. In 2015, the French firm Veolia was contracted to manage the state-owned electric utility Electricité de Guinée (EDG) – a contract which ended in October 2019. Several private projects aimed at harnessing Guinea’s solar energy potential and gas-powered thermal plants are being implemented with the goal of producing and selling energy throughout Guinea and to neighboring countries. Other SOEs are found in the telecommunications, road construction, lottery, and transportation sectors. There are several other mixed companies where the state owns a significant or majority share, that are typically related to the extractives industry.While neither former President Conde’s administration nor the transition government have published significant information concerning the financial stability of SOEs, EDG’s balance sheet is understood to be deeply in the red. In 2019, the government reorganized EDG’s governance structure, appointed a Board of Directors, and hired a new management team. The government increased electricity tariffs in 2018, 2019, and 2021, though the COVID-19 pandemic took a toll on EDG’s financial performance, as the authorities suspended electricity charges for some customers, causing collection rates to dip once again, and delayed additional planned increases in the tariff structure. The World Bank estimates that total tariffs cover only half of EDG’s costs. The IMF reported that in 2022, up to 25 percent of the state budget went toward subsidizing electricity, totaling more than USD 400 million.The hydroelectricity sector could support Guinea’s modernization and possibly even supply regional markets. Guinea’s hydropower potential is estimated at more than 6,000MW, making it a potential exporter of power to neighboring countries. The largest energy sector investment in Guinea is the 450MW Souapiti dam project (valued at USD 2.1 billion), begun in late 2015 with Chinese investment. A Chinese firm likewise completed the 240MW Kaleta Dam (valued at USD 526 million) in May 2015. Kaleta more than doubled Guinea’s electricity supply, and for the first-time furnished Conakry with more reliable, albeit seasonal, electricity (May-November). Souapiti began producing electricity in 2021. A third hydroelectric dam on the same river, dubbed Amaria, began construction in January 2019 and is expected to be operational in 2024. The Chinese mining firm TBEA is providing financing for the Amaria power plant (300 MW, USD 1.2 billion investment). If corresponding distribution infrastructure is built, and pricing enables it, these projects could make Guinea an energy exporter in West Africa.Plans for improving the distribution network to enable electricity export are in process with the development of the Gambia River Basin Development (OMVG) (Organization pour la Mise en Oeuvre du Fleuve Gambie, in French) transmission project connecting Guinea, Senegal, Guinea Bissau, and The Gambia. The OMVG project involves the construction of 1,677 kilometers of 225-volt transmission network capable of handling 800MW to provide electricity for over two million people. At the same time, Guinea is moving forward with the Côte d&#8217;Ivoire, Liberia, and Sierra Leone (CLSG) transmission interconnector project, which will integrate Guinea into the West African Power Pool (WAPP) and allow for energy import-export across the region. The Côte d&#8217;Ivoire section is complete.The amount of research and development (R&amp;D) expenditures is not known, but it would be highly unlikely that any of Guinea&#8217;s SOEs would devote significant funding to R&amp;D. Guinean SOEs are entitled to subsidized fuel, which EDG uses to run thermal generator stations in Conakry. Guinea is not party to the Government Procurement Agreement.Corporate governance of SOEs is determined by the government. Guinean SOEs do not adhere to the OECD guidelines. SOEs are supposed to report to the Office of the President, however, typically they report to a ministry. Seats on the board of governance for SOEs are usually allocated by presidential decree.																										Privatization Program										The transition government is continuing the former Conde administration’s initiative to privatize the energy sector. In February 2020, EDG became a public limited company with its own board of directors. The new directors were appointed by former President Conde through decree, replaced with a new Board of Directors with a decree from Transition President COL Doumbouya in February 2022.Bidding processes are clearly spelled out for potential bidders; however, Guinea gives weight to competence in the French language and experience working on similar projects in West Africa. In spring 2015, a U.S. company lost a fiber optics tender largely due to its lack of native French speakers on the project and lack of regional experience.																																												8. Responsible Business Conduct (RBC)						    																						The 2013 Mining Code includes Guinea’s first legal framework outlining corporate social responsibility. Under the provisions of the code, mining companies must submit social and environmental impact plans for approval before operations can begin and sign a code of good conduct, agreeing to refrain from corrupt activities and to follow the precepts of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI). Nonetheless, lack of capacity in the various ministries involved makes government monitoring and enforcement of corporate social responsibility requirements difficult, a gap that some non-governmental organizations are filling. In February 2022, Guinea was found to have achieved a high overall score in implementing EITI standards. The EITI Board outlined five corrective actions, including publishing all active extractive licenses and contracts, disclosing all extractive license awards and transfers and how they deviate from the Mining Code annually, disclosing the owners of companies holding or applying for extractive licenses, improving disclosures of government extractive revenue by project, and disclosing direct subnational payments by extractive companies. The Board noted that the EITI should play a role in overseeing the Local Economic Development Fund (FODEL) to which mining companies contribute. Mining companies continue to note a lack of transparency in the expenditure of revenues by the National Agency for Mining Infrastructure (ANAIM).The 2019 Environmental Code also has specific provisions regarding environmental and social due diligence on any development projects. The Code requires each development project to conduct an environmental impact study which includes a list of mitigation measures for any negative impact.Guinea has laws that protect the population from adverse business impacts&#8211; although these laws are not effectively enforced. In the last few years, there were several cases of private enterprises having an adverse impact on human rights, especially in the mining and energy sectors. The government is often reluctant to enforce legislation fully regarding responsible conduct and the mitigation of these impacts. There are several local and international organizations that are promoting and monitoring the implementation of RBC. Guinea is not a signatory of the Montreux document on Private Military and Security Companies.																										Additional Resources										Department of StateCountry Reports on Human Rights Practices ( https://www.state.gov/reports-bureau-of-democracy-human-rights-and-labor/country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/)Trafficking in Persons Report ( https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/)Guidance on Implementing the &#8220;UN Guiding Principles&#8221; for Transactions Linked to Foreign Government End-Users for Products or Services with Surveillance Capabilities ( https://www.state.gov/key-topics-bureau-of-democracy-human-rights-and-labor/due-diligence-guidance/)U.S. National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises ( https://www.state.gov/u-s-national-contact-point-for-the-oecd-guidelines-for-multinational-enterprises/)Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory ( https://www.state.gov/xinjiang-supply-chain-business-advisory/)Department of the TreasuryOFAC Recent Actions ( https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/recent-actions )Department of LaborFindings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor Report ( https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/resources/reports/child-labor/findings  )List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor ( https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods )Sweat &amp; Toil: Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking Around the World ( https://www.dol.gov/general/apps/ilab )Comply Chain ( https://www.dol.gov/ilab/complychain/ )																																				Climate Issues										Guinea ratified the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1993 and the Kyoto Protocol in 2005. Guinea prepared an Initial National Communication in 2001 to inventory greenhouse gases (GHG), based on emissions in 1994. A second GHG inventory was completed in 2011, based on 2000 emissions. Guinea prepared its National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPA) in 2007 and undertook several projects to implement the plan. Prior to COP21 in Paris in December 2015, Guinea submitted an Intended National Contribution Determination in September 2015, committing to a 13 percent decrease in GHG emissions by 2030, as compared to 1994 emission levels. In preparation for COP26 in Edinburgh in November 2021, Guinea prepared a Nationally Determined Contribution in July 2021, making a commitment to a 17 percent reduction target across sectors, potentially reaching a 49 percent reduction by 2030 by including land-use and forestry. Guinea has not yet prepared a National Adaptation Plan.As of April 2023, Guinea does not offer any regulatory incentives to achieve policy outcomes that preserve climate change benefits, nor do public procurement policies include environmental and green growth considerations.																																												9. Corruption						    																						According to Transparency International’s 2022 Corruption Perception Index, Guinea was ranked 147 out of 180 countries listed. According to the World Bank’s 2021 Worldwide Governance Indicators, corruption continues to remain a severe problem, and Guinea is in the 16th percentile, up from being in the 13th percentile in 2018.The business and political culture, coupled with low salaries, have historically combined to promote and encourage corruption. Requests for bribes are a common occurrence. Though it is illegal to pay bribes in Guinea, there is little enforcement of these laws. In practice, it is difficult and time-consuming to conduct business without giving “gifts” in Guinea, leaving U.S. companies, who must comply with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, at a disadvantage. According to a 2019 Afrobarometer survey, at least 40 percent of Guineans reported having given a government official a bribe, while a 2016 World Bank Enterprise Survey reported that of 150 firms surveyed, 48.7 percent reported that they were expected to give “gifts” to public officials to get things done, but only 7.9 percent reported having paid a bribe. A 2016 survey by the Guinea’s Anti-Corruption Agency (ANLC), the Open Society Initiative-West Africa, and Transparency International found that among private households, 61 percent of the respondents stated they were asked to pay a bribe for national services and 24 percent for local services. Furthermore, 24 percent claimed to have paid traffic-related bribes to police, 24 percent for better medical treatment, 19 percent for better water or electricity services, and 8 percent for better judicial treatment.The ANLC is an autonomous agency established by presidential decree in 2004. The ANLC reports directly to the President and is currently the only state agency focused solely on fighting corruption, though it has been largely ineffective in its role with no successful convictions. The ANLC’s Bureau of Complaint Reception fields anonymous tips forwarded to the ANLC. Investigations and cases must then be prosecuted through criminal courts. The agency is underfunded, understaffed, and lacks computers and vehicles.Guinea passed an Anti-Corruption Law in 2017. Although the law provides criminal penalties for corruption, the law does not extend to family members of government officials. It does include provisions for political parties. Public funds have been diverted for private use or for illegitimate public uses, such as buying vehicles for government workers. Land sales and business contracts lack transparency.In January 2021, Beny Steinmetz, an Israeli businessman and billionaire was sentenced to five years in jail in Geneva for bribing the wife of Guinea’s late President Lansana Conté to gain the rights to one of the world’s richest iron-ore deposits. He was also ordered to pay a 50 million Swiss franc (USD 56 million) fine. Steinmetz has long claimed to be a victim of a vast international conspiracy to deprive him of the rights to the Simandou project. He plans to appeal his case.Transition President COL Doumbouya created the Court to Repress Economic and Financial Crimes (CRIEF) to handle cases involving embezzlement, corruption, and misuse of public funds over one billion GNF (approximately $110,000) in December 2021. As of April 2023, the court has brought evidence before the court for corruption cases against businesses tied to and officials that served in former President Conde’s government as well as several officials in the current government.Guinea is a party to the UN Anticorruption Convention.  http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/treaties/CAC/signatories.html Guinea is not a party to the OECD Convention on Combatting Bribery.  http://www.oecd.org/daf/anti-bribery/countryreportsontheimplementationoftheoecdanti-briberyconvention.htm Since 2012, Guinea has had a Code for Public Procurement (Code de Marches Publics et Delegations de Service Public) that provides regulations for countering conflicts of interest in awarding contracts or in government procurements. In 2016, the government issued a Transparency and Ethics charter for public procurement that provides the main do’s and don&#8217;ts in public procurement, highlighting avoidance of conflict of interest as a priority. The charter also includes a template letter that companies must sign when bidding for public contracts stating that they will comply with local legislation and public procurement provisions, including practices to prevent corruption.Since April 2020, Government of Guinea officials and family members must complete the asset declaration form which is available on the Court of Audit website.																										Resources to Report Corruption										Contact at the government agency or agencies that are responsible for combating corruption:National Agency to Fight Corruption (ANLC)Cite des Nations, Villa 20, Conakry, GuineaSaikou Amadou Diallo, Executive Secretary+224 628 85 76 74+224 663 12 26 52www.anlc.org.gn alerte.corruption@anlc.org.gn  Contact at a &#8220;watchdog&#8221; organization: Transparency InternationalDakar, Senegal+221-33-842-40-44 forumcivil@orange.sn   Guinea Association for TransparencyOumar Kanah Diallo, President+224 622 404 142 okandiallo77@gmail.com   agtguinee224@gmail.com  																																												10. Political and Security Environment						    																						Guinea has had a long history of political repression, with more recent episodes of politically motivated violence around elections. The country suffered under authoritarian rule from independence in 1958 until its first democratic presidential election in 2010. It has seen continued political violence associated with national and local elections since 2010, culminating in the most recent September 2021 coup d’état.On September 5, 2021, Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya and Guinean military special forces seized power and detained former President Alpha Conde through a coup d’état.  Doumbouya declared himself Guinea’s head of state, dissolved the government and National Assembly and suspended the constitution.  Guinea is currently governed by the National Committee for Reunification and Development (CNRD), which is led by Doumbouya and includes other military officials.  On September 27, 2021, Doumbouya released the Transitional Charter which supersedes the constitution until a new Constitution is promulgated; Guinea’s penal and civil codes remains in force.  On October 1, 2021, the Supreme Court Justice installed COL Doumbouya as Head of State, Transition President, CNRD President, and Commander-in-Chief of Security Forces.  A Presidential decree install the National Transition Council, the transition’s legislative body, on February 6, 2022.After much negotiation with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the ruling junta has reached an agreement on a 24-month transition timeline to return to democratic constitutional order, ending on December 31, 2024. Following the agreement with ECOWAS, the transition government organized a dialogue between the government, civil society, and political parties, with three Guinean women as mediators in November and December 2022. The four main political party coalitions boycotted the dialogue and rejected its conclusions and recommendations. In March 2023, religious leaders in Conakry successfully convened Transition Prime Minister Bernard Goumou and the four main political party coalitions that boycotted the dialogue at the negotiating table.The political opposition and civil society groups have periodically called for protests in Conakry and nationwide since June 2022, despite a May 2022 decree issued by President Doumbouya banning protests in Conakry. Though the protests have not resulted in significant mobilization of supporters in the streets, sporadic, violent protests have rocked Conakry with regular clashes between protestors and security forces between June 2022 and March 2023 that frequently lead to casualties.In March 2020, the former Conde administration amended the constitution through a referendum that allowed former President Conde to seek a third term in office. Observers noted the process was not transparent, inclusive, or consultative. Major opposition parties boycotted the referendum and accompanying legislative elections. This resulted in resetting presidential term limits and the ruling party, the Rally for the Guinean People (RPG), gaining a super majority in the National Assembly. Domestic and international observers raised concerns regarding widespread violence and voting irregularities in the legislative elections, including closed and ransacked polling stations.In October 2020, President Alpha Conde ran for reelection for a third term under the new constitution. International and domestic observers raised concerns about widespread electoral violence, restrictions on freedom of assembly, the lack of transparency in vote tabulation, and inconsistencies between the announced results and tally sheet results from polling stations. Violent protests during both elections closed businesses in major population centers, resulted in about 150 deaths, and the arbitrary detention of hundreds of people including several prominent opposition figures. Political intimidation and arbitrary detention of opposition members continued for several months after the election.The local population in Boke, Bel-Air, and Sangaredi disrupted road and/or railroad traffic on at on numerous occasions in recent years in response to grievances over employment, lack of services, and other issues. Although none of these events targeted American or foreign investors, they were disruptive to business in general and eroded confidence in the security situation under which investors must operate in Guinea. Street violence is difficult to predict or avoid, but generally does not target westerners.Other instances of violence occurred in 2014 and 2015 during the Ebola epidemic when local citizens attacked the vehicles and facilities of aid workers. The Red Cross, MSF (Doctors Without Borders) and the World Health Organization (WHO) also reported cases of property damage (destroyed vehicles, ransacked warehouses, etc.). On September 16, 2014, in the Forest Region village of Womei, eight people were killed by a mob when they visited the village as part of an Ebola education campaign. The casualties included radio journalists, local officials, and Guinean health care workers.The small mining town of Zogota, located in Guinea’s Forest Region, saw the deaths of five villagers, including the village chief, during August 2012 clashes with security forces over claims that the Brazilian iron-mining company Vale was not hiring enough local employees and was instead bringing workers from other regions of Guinea. The ensuing instability led to Vale evacuating all expatriate personnel from the town.Following the death of former President Lansana Conte on December 22, 2008, a military junta calling themselves the National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD) took power in a bloodless coup. Immediately following the coup, the U.S. government suspended all but humanitarian and election assistance to Guinea. The African Union (AU) and ECOWAS suspended Guinea’s membership pending democratic elections and a relinquishment of power by the military junta. In September 2009, junta security forces attacked a political rally in a stadium in Conakry, killing 150 people, and raping more than a hundred women. In September 2022, the Guinean judiciary began a court case to try the officials accused of organizing that stadium massacre.The state had persecuted political dissidents and opposition parties for decades. The Sekou Toure regime (1958-1984) and the Lansana Conte regime (1984-2008) were marked by political violence and human rights abuses.																																		11. Labor Policies and Practices						    																						Guinea has a young population and a high unemployment rate. Potential employees often lack specialized skills. The country has a poor educational system and lacks professionals in all sectors of the economy. Guinea has deficits in specialized skills needed for large-scale projects of any kind.According to a 2019 World Bank report on “Employment, Productivity, and Inclusion of Youth,” in 2017, services (49 percent of GDP), mining and industry (37 percent), and agriculture (10 percent) comprised Guinea’s economy. The tendencies show that employment in Guinea is like other countries in the region, with a high level of employment in the informal sector. According to the 2018 World Bank Development Indicators, approximately 65 percent of Guineans above 15 years old, (56 percent males and 44 percent females) found employment in the formal or informal sectors. Of those employed, 52 percent worked in agricultural sector, 34 percent in commerce, and 14 percent in industry and manufacturing.In March 2020, the National Assembly revised the Children’s Code to increase protections and rights afforded to minors. The code provides increased penalties for offenses that expose children to violence, sexuality, the display or dissemination of obscene images, and messages not intended for children. The new code also increases penalties relating to child labor, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and the fight against child pornography. Under the code, children between the ages of 12 and 14 can perform light work, which does not meet international standards, as it applies to children under age 13. In addition, the code does not prescribe the number of hours per week permitted for light work, nor does it specify the conditions under which light work may be done. Moreover, this code only applies to workers with written employment contracts, leaving self-employed children and children working outside of formal employment relationships vulnerable to exploitation.Guinea&#8217;s National Assembly adopted a new Labor Code in February 2014, which protects the rights of employees and is enforced by the Ministry of Technical Education, Vocational Training, Employment, and Labor. The Labor Code sets forth guidelines in various sectors, the most stringent being the mining sector. Guidelines cover wages, holidays, work schedules, overtime pay, vacation, and sick leave. The Labor Code also outlaws all discrimination in hiring, including based on sex, disability, and ethnicity. It also prohibits all forms of workplace harassment, including sexual harassment. The law does not provide antidiscrimination protections for persons based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity.Although the law provides for the rights of workers to organize and join independent unions, engage in strikes, and bargain collectively, the law also places restrictions on the free exercise of these rights. The Labor Code requires unions to obtain the support of 20 percent of the workers in a company, region, or trade that the union claims to represent. The code mandates that unions provide ten days’ notice to the labor ministry before striking, but the code does allow work slowdowns. Strikes are only permitted for professional claims. The Labor Code does not apply to government workers or members of the armed forces. While the Labor Code protects union officials from anti-union discrimination, it does not extend that same protection to other workers.The law prohibits child labor in the formal sector and sets forth penalties of three to ten years imprisonment and confiscation of resulting profits. The law does not protect children in the informal sector. The minimum age for employment is 16. Exceptions allow children to work at age twelve as apprentices for light work in such sectors as domestic service and agriculture, and at 14 for other work. A new child code was adopted at the National Assembly in December 2019, though it was never enacted by former President Conde. The new child code provides more severe sentences for violations related to child labor.The Labor Code allows the government to set a minimum monthly wage through the Consultative Commission for Labor and Social Laws. The minimum wage for all sectors was increased by the transition government from 440,000 GNF (approximately USD 50) to 550,000 GNF (about USD 60). There is no known official poverty income level established by the government.The law mandates that regular work should not exceed ten-hour days or 48-hour weeks, and it mandates a period of at least 24 consecutive hours of rest each week, usually on Sunday. Every salaried worker has the legal right to an annual paid vacation, accumulated at the rate of at least two workdays per month of work. There also are provisions in the law for overtime and night wages, which are a fixed percentage of the regular wage. The law stipulates a maximum of 100 hours of compulsory overtime a year.The law contains general provisions regarding occupational safety and health, but neither former President Conde’s government nor the transition government have established a set of practical workplace health and safety standards. Moreover, no orders have been issued laying out the specific safety requirements for certain occupations or for certain methods of work called for in the Labor Code. All workers, foreign and migrant included, have the right to refuse to work in unsafe conditions without penalty.Authorities rarely monitor work practices or enforced the workweek standards and the overtime rules. Teachers’ wages are low, and teachers sometimes have gone for months without pay. When salary arrears are not paid, some teachers live in abject poverty. From 2016-2018, teachers conducted regular strikes and as a result and were promised a 40 percent increase in pay. Initially they received only ten percent, but in March 2018, the government began to pay the remaining 30 percent. In February 2019, the teacher’s union accepted the government proposal at the time and returned to work. In January 2020, the teachers started an indefinite strike demanding higher wages and the re-running of a census of currently employed teachers. As of end of March 2020, the teachers’ strike was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Despite legal protection against working in unsafe conditions, many workers feared retaliation and did not exercise their right to refuse to work under unsafe conditions. Accidents in unsafe working conditions remain common. The government banned artisanal mining during the rainy season to prevent deaths from mudslides, but the practice continues.Pursuant to the Labor Code, any person is considered a worker, regardless of gender or nationality, who is engaged in any occupational activity in return for remuneration, under the direction and authority of another individual or entity, whether public or private, secular, or religious. In accordance with this code, forced or compulsory labor means any work or services extracted from an individual under threat of a penalty and for which the individual concerned has not offered himself willingly.A contract of employment is a contract under which a person agrees to be at the disposal and under the direction of another person in return for remuneration. The contract may be agreed upon for an indefinite or a fixed term and may only be agreed upon by individuals of at least 16 years of age, although minors under the age of 16 may be contracted only with the authorization of the minor’s parent or guardian. An unjustified dismissal provides the employee the right to receive compensation from the employer in an amount equal to at least six months’ salary with the last gross wage paid to the employee being used as the basis for calculating the compensation due.The 2015 Investment Code obliges new companies to prioritize hiring local employees and provide capacity training and promotion opportunities for Guineans, a sentiment echoed by public remarks from Transition President COL Doumbouya and other members of the transition government.																																		12. U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and Other Investment Insurance or Development Finance Programs						    																						Guinea and the United States have had an agreement since 1962 on private investment guarantees – making investors eligible for DFC investment insurance programs. Guinea has great potential for DFC programs, especially in the areas of banking, agriculture, IT, energy, mining, and infrastructure.The DFC, through its predecessor the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), in 2016 in concert with the International Finance Corporation, and several commercial banks, provided CBG a loan package of over USD 795 million to expand its bauxite production. DFC inspects the CBG expansion project semi-annually. More recently DFC has supported Endeavor’s USD 121 million Project Te, a 50MW thermal energy project.																																		13. Foreign Direct Investment Statistics						    																						Table 2: Key Macroeconomic Data, U.S. FDI in Host Country/EconomyHost Country Statistical source*USG or international statistical sourceUSG or International Source of Data:  BEA; IMF; Eurostat; UNCTAD, OtherEconomic DataYearAmountYearAmount Host Country Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ($M USD)2021$21.22 million2021$16.09 billionhttps://data.worldbank.org/country/guineaForeign Direct InvestmentHost Country Statistical source*USG or international statistical sourceUSG or international Source of data:  BEA; IMF; Eurostat; UNCTAD, OtherU.S. FDI in partner country ($M USD, stock positions)2020$578 million2020$296 millionBEA data available at https://apps.bea.gov/international/factsheet/factsheet.html#416Host country’s FDI in the United States ($M USD, stock positions)N/AN/AN/AN/ABEA data available at https://apps.bea.gov/international/factsheet/factsheet.html#416Total inbound stock of FDI as % host GDP202127.2%202128.9%UNCTAD data available athttps://unctad.org/system/files/non-official-document/wir_fs_gn_en.pdfTable 3: Sources and Destination of FDIDirect Investment from/in Counterpart Economy DataFrom Top Five Sources/To Top Five Destinations (US Dollars, Millions)Inward Direct Investment (2021)Outward Direct Investment (2021)Total Inward4,716100%Total Outward131100%British Virgin Islands79417%Nigeria9673%United Kingdom75016%Mauritius2015%South Africa58912%France75%United States57812%Malawi22%France3077%Cameroon22%&#8220;0&#8221; reflects amounts rounded to +/- USD 500,000.Note: The table above does not fully capture the inbound and outbound investment positions, as some data were suppressed by the reporting economy to preserve confidentiality.																																		14. Contact for More Information						    																						Political and Economic SectionU.S. Embassy Conakry+224 655 104 000 conakry_econ_comm@state.gov 																										    							View report by:																				Albania											Algeria											Andorra											Angola											Antigua and Barbuda											Argentina											Armenia											Australia											Austria											The Bahamas											Azerbaijan											Bahrain											Bangladesh											Barbados											Belarus											Belgium											Belize											Benin											Bolivia											Bosnia and Herzegovina											Botswana											Brazil											Brunei											Bulgaria											Burkina Faso											Burma											Burundi											Cabo Verde											Cambodia											Cameroon											Canada											Chile											China											Colombia											Costa Rica											Côte d’Ivoire											Croatia											Cyprus											Czechia											Democratic Republic of the Congo											Denmark											Djibouti											Dominica											Dominican Republic											Ecuador											Egypt											El Salvador											Equatorial Guinea											Eritrea											Estonia											Eswatini											Ethiopia											Fiji											Finland											France and Monaco											The Gambia											Gabon											Georgia											Germany											Ghana											Greece											Grenada											Guatemala											Guinea											Guyana											Honduras											Haiti											Hong Kong											Hungary											Iceland											India											Indonesia											Iraq											Ireland											Israel											Italy											Jamaica											Japan											Jordan											Kazakhstan											Kenya											Kosovo											Kyrgyz Republic											Laos											Latvia											Lebanon											Lesotho											Liberia											Libya											Lithuania											Luxembourg											Macau											Madagascar											Malawi											Malaysia											Maldives											Mali											Malta											Marshall Islands											Mauritania											Mauritius											Mexico											Micronesia											Moldova											Mongolia											Montenegro											Morocco											Mozambique											Namibia											Nepal											Netherlands											New Zealand											Nicaragua											Niger											Nigeria											North Macedonia											Norway											Oman											Pakistan											Palau											Panama											Papua New Guinea											Paraguay											Peru											Philippines											Poland											Portugal											Qatar											Republic of the Congo											Romania											Rwanda											Saint Kitts and Nevis											Saint Lucia											Saint Vincent and the Grenadines											Samoa											Sao Tome and Principe											Saudi Arabia											Senegal											Serbia											Seychelles											Sierra Leone											Singapore											Slovakia											Slovenia											Somalia											South Africa											South Korea											South Sudan											Spain											Sri Lanka											Suriname											Sweden											Switzerland											Taiwan											Tajikistan											Tanzania											Thailand											Timor-Leste											Togo											Trinidad and Tobago											Tunisia											Türkiye											United Arab Emirates											Uganda											Ukraine											United Kingdom											Uruguay											Uzbekistan											Vietnam											West Bank and Gaza											Zambia											Zimbabwe															Build A Custom Report																						On This Page				search													>																										EXECUTIVE SUMMARY																1. Openness To, and Restrictions Upon, Foreign Investment																																							Policies Towards Foreign Direct Investment																																																						Limits on Foreign Control and Right to Private Ownership and Establishment																																																						Other Investment Policy Reviews																																																						Business Facilitation																																																						Outward Investment																																																			2. Bilateral Investment and Taxation Treaties																3. Legal Regime																																							Transparency of the Regulatory System																																																						International Regulatory Considerations																																																						Legal System and Judicial Independence																																																						Laws and Regulations on Foreign Direct Investment																																																						Competition and Antitrust Laws																																																						Expropriation and Compensation																																																						Dispute Settlement																																																				ICSID Convention and New York Convention																																												Investor-State Dispute Settlement																																												International Commercial Arbitration and Foreign Courts																																																																																				Bankruptcy Regulations																																																			4. Industrial Policies																																							Investment Incentives																																																						Foreign Trade Zones/Free Ports/Trade Facilitation																																																						Performance and Data Localization Requirements																																																			5. Protection of Property Rights																																							Real Property																																																						Intellectual Property Rights																																																			6. Financial Sector																																							Capital Markets and Portfolio Investment																																																						Money and Banking System																																																						Foreign Exchange and Remittances																																																				Foreign Exchange																																												Remittance Policies																																																																																				Sovereign Wealth Funds																																																			7. State-Owned Enterprises																																							Privatization Program																																																			8. Responsible Business Conduct (RBC)																																							Additional Resources																																																						Climate Issues																																																			9. Corruption																																							Resources to Report Corruption																																																			10. Political and Security Environment																11. Labor Policies and Practices																12. U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and Other Investment Insurance or Development Finance Programs																13. Foreign Direct Investment Statistics																14. Contact for More Information																						Tags																					Bureau of African Affairs																								Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs																								Guinea
- Guinea HomeReportsBureau of Economic and Business Affairs2023 Fiscal Transparency Report&#8230;Guinea				hide	document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {	if(window.jQuery) {		jQuery( document ).ready(function() {			if (jQuery(".bc_middle").hasClass("collapse")) {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});				jQuery(".bc_hide").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});			} else {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").hide();			}		});	}});																							2023 Fiscal Transparency Report: Guinea 																																					Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs																																																																																																				 In this section																																												Government-by-Government Assessments: Guinea 																																												Government-by-Government Assessments: Guinea 				During the review period, the transition government made significant progress by publishing audit reports within a reasonable period. The transition government published its enacted budget and end-of-year report online within a reasonable period. Nonetheless, the transition government did not publish an executive budget proposal within a reasonable period. The enacted budget provided a substantially full picture by including major sources of revenue and expenditure, except it did not include allocations to and earnings from state-owned enterprises. Only limited information on debt obligations, including major state-owned enterprise debt, was publicly available. Actual revenues and expenditures reasonably corresponded to those in the enacted budget. Budget documents were prepared according to internationally accepted principles and were comparable year-to-year. The supreme audit institution met international standards of independence. It published reports that contained substantive findings within a reasonable period, but those reports did not cover the entire annual executed budget. The transition government specified in law and followed in practice the procedures for awarding contracts or licenses for natural resource extraction. Basic information on natural resource extraction awards was publicly available.Guinea’s fiscal transparency would be improved by:Publishing an executive budget proposal within a reasonable period;Incorporating allocations to and earnings from state-owned enterprises in budget documents;Publishing sufficient information on government debt obligations, including for major state-owned enterprises; andPublishing audit reports of the government’s entire annual executed budget.																												    							View report by:																				Afghanistan											Algeria											Angola											Azerbaijan											Bahrain											Bangladesh											Benin											Burma											Burundi											Cambodia											Cameroon											Central African Republic											Chad											China, People’s Republic of											Comoros											Congo, Democratic Republic of											Congo, Republic of the											Djibouti											Egypt											Equatorial Guinea											Eswatini											Ethiopia											Gabon											The Gambia											Guinea											Guinea-Bissau											Iraq											Laos											Lebanon											Lesotho											Liberia											Libya											Madagascar											Malawi											Mali											Maldives											Mauritania											Mongolia											Mozambique											Niger											Oman											Pakistan											Palestinian Authority											Papua New Guinea											Rwanda											Sao Tome and Principe											Saudi Arabia											Senegal											Sierra Leone											Somalia											South Africa											South Sudan											Sudan											Tajikistan											Tanzania											Turkmenistan											Ukraine											Uzbekistan											Vietnam											Yemen											Zambia											Zimbabwe																										On This Page				search													>																										Government-by-Government Assessments: Guinea 																	Tags																					Bureau of African Affairs																								Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs																								Division for International Finance and Development																								Guinea
- Guinea HomeReportsOffice to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons2023 Trafficking in Persons Report&#8230;Guinea				hide	document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {	if(window.jQuery) {		jQuery( document ).ready(function() {			if (jQuery(".bc_middle").hasClass("collapse")) {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});				jQuery(".bc_hide").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});			} else {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").hide();			}		});	}});																							2023 Trafficking in Persons Report: Guinea																																					Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons																																																																																																				 In this section										/																							GUINEA (Tier 2)																																													GUINEA (Tier 2)																															PRIORITIZED RECOMMENDATIONS:																																																																																		PROSECUTION																																																																																		PROTECTION																																																																																		PREVENTION																																																																																		TRAFFICKING PROFILE:																																																																																																								GUINEA (Tier 2)				The Government of Guinea does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so.  The government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared with the previous reporting period, considering the impact of COVID-19, if any, on its anti-trafficking capacity; therefore Guinea was upgraded to Tier 2.  These efforts included initiating prosecutions, referring all identified victims and potential victims to services, and opening two new shelters dedicated to trafficking victims.  The government updated its SOPs on victim identification and referral to care and, in partnership with an international organization, began screening undocumented migrants for trafficking indicators.  However, the government did not meet the minimum standards in several key areas.  The government did not amend its penal code to remove sentencing provisions that allow fines in lieu of imprisonment for trafficking crimes or increase penalties prescribed for forced begging. 																																					PRIORITIZED RECOMMENDATIONS:						    																																															Increase efforts to investigate and prosecute suspected traffickers and complicit officials, and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, which should involve significant prison terms.  Amend the penal code to remove sentencing provisions that allow fines in lieu of imprisonment and ensure penalties prescribed for forced begging are sufficiently stringent.  Significantly increase efforts to identify trafficking victims among vulnerable populations, including children exploited in forced begging, workers in artisanal mining sites, women traveling to the Middle East in potential fraudulent recruitment schemes, and Cuban medical professionals, and refer trafficking victims to appropriate services.  Draft and implement an anti-trafficking National Action Plan.  Increase funding and in-kind support for NGOs to ensure all identified trafficking victims receive services.  Train law enforcement and service providers on standard procedures to identify trafficking victims and refer them to services.  Develop a formal witness assistance program for victims participating in judicial proceedings.  Provide the Office for the Protection of Gender, Children, and Morals (OPROGEM) and labor inspectors the resources and training necessary to monitor recruitment agencies and investigate forced labor cases.  Establish a uniform and comprehensive data collection system on anti-trafficking efforts, distinguishing human trafficking from other crimes.  Increase efforts to raise public awareness of trafficking, including child forced labor.  Strengthen the National Committee to Combat Trafficking in Persons and Similar Practices’ (CNLTPPA) authority to implement anti-trafficking policy and coordinate activities and information sharing among agencies conducting anti-trafficking work.  Develop mechanisms for formalizing law enforcement collaboration with countries in Africa and the Middle East, including through bilateral agreements.  Screen any North Korean workers for signs of trafficking and refer them to appropriate services, in a manner consistent with obligations under United Nations Security Council resolution 2397.																																												PROSECUTION						    																																															The government marginally increased anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts.  Article 323 and 324 of the penal code criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking and prescribed penalties of three to seven years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both for trafficking offenses involving an adult victim, and five to 10 years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both for those involving a child victim.  These penalties were sufficiently stringent; however, by allowing for a fine in lieu of imprisonment, the penalties for sex trafficking were not commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape.  Under Article 893 and 894 of the children’s code, child trafficking crimes were prescribed penalties of five to 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 50 million to 100 million Guinean francs ($5,850-$11,690); these penalties were commensurate with those prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape.  Article 343 of the penal code separately criminalized forced begging and prescribed penalties of one to three years’ imprisonment and a fine; these penalties were not sufficiently stringent.Insecurity across the country hindered the government’s collection of law enforcement statistics.  The government did not report anti-trafficking data consistently from year to year, making it difficult to assess its law enforcement efforts.  The government reported initiating investigations of 127 suspects in an unknown number of cases, including 67 for sex trafficking, seven for forced labor, and 53 for unspecified forms of trafficking, compared with 46 case investigations of an unknown number of suspects in 2021, and continued investigations of 16 trafficking cases initiated in the previous reporting period.  The government reported prosecuting 42 suspects, including three for sex trafficking, four for labor trafficking, and 35 for unspecified forms of trafficking, and continued prosecution of 19 suspects initiated in previous reporting periods.  This compared with no reported prosecutions in the previous reporting period.  Courts convicted 10 traffickers, two for sex trafficking, three for labor trafficking, and five under other statutes, compared with 24 convictions during the previous reporting period.  The 10 convicted traffickers received sentences of two years or less, fines, and were ordered to pay restitution, which did not serve to deter the crime or adequately reflect the nature of the offense.  The Special Brigade for the Protection of Vulnerable Persons (BSPPV) and OPROGEM were the lead government entities responsible for investigating trafficking cases, and the General Secretary for Special Services, Counter-Narcotics, and Combating Organized Crime could investigate transnational trafficking cases.  The government continued to dedicate a budget to OPROGEM and completed construction of its new headquarters building.  Designated magistrates in the Ministry of Justice prosecuted trafficking cases.  Despite a December 2022 public report indicating observers’ continued concerns of Guinean children exploited in forced labor in Quranic schools, the government has not prosecuted perpetrators of this form of forced child labor.The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government employees complicit in human trafficking crimes; however, corruption and official complicity in trafficking crimes remained significant concerns, inhibiting law enforcement action.  The lack of extradition agreements with countries in Africa and the Middle East impeded prosecutions of alleged traffickers from those countries.  The government partnered with the Government of Tunisia and other regional governments to share best practices for combating trafficking.  Observers reported in some instances the Government of Guinea required foreign government officials to first prove Guinean children’s nationality before assisting with their repatriation.Observers reported a lack of general knowledge about trafficking and trafficking provisions under the 2016 penal code among government officials, especially judges and prosecutors in lower courts.  The government, in partnership with a foreign government and NGOs, trained police cadets, gendarmes, and border police on anti-trafficking investigations and identifying and interviewing victims.  The government trained judges on trafficking and trafficking networks.  The government, in conjunction with an international organization, held capacity building workshops to improve data collection on human trafficking cases.																																												PROTECTION						    																																															The government increased protection efforts.  For the first time, the government provided disaggregated protection data.  The government reported identifying 81 trafficking victims – 71 forced labor victims, including 65 children and six adults, and 10 sex trafficking victims, all children.  The government reported identifying an additional 237 potential trafficking victims.  This compared with the government reporting identification of 291 trafficking victims in the previous reporting period (225 forced labor victims and 66 sex trafficking victims), which may have included victims of other crimes.  The government referred all 81 identified victims and 237 potential victims to services, compared with referring 220 victims to care in the previous year.  The government reported NGOs identified an additional 945 trafficking victims, including 32 sex trafficking victims (28 children and 4 adults), 274 forced labor victims (93 children and 181 adults, including three victims with disabilities), and 639 victims of other exploitation, which may have included crimes other than trafficking.  Lack of training and coordination between ministries, as well as inconsistent and sometimes unavailable government services, continued to inhibit victim identification and assistance efforts.The government had SOPs for victim identification and referral to services and, in collaboration with an international organization, updated its SOPs, including by mapping relevant stakeholders and their collaboration methods.  The government also had a standardized victim referral manual for vulnerable populations, including trafficking victims, seeking legal and judicial assistance.  For the first time, the government, in collaboration with an international organization, began screening undocumented migrants for trafficking indicators.  The government reported offering trafficking victims psychosocial assistance, legal services, and economic support for income generating activities; however, the government continued to rely on NGOs and foreign donors to provide and fund the majority of victim care.  Observers reported LGBTQI+ persons and individuals in commercial sex faced challenges in accessing services.The government opened two new shelters specifically for trafficking victims, the first of their kind in Guinea.  The Ministry of Women’s Promotion, Childhood, and Vulnerable People (MoWP), the lead ministry on combatting trafficking in persons, established one shelter in Conakry with capacity for 66 people, including women and children.  The second shelter, also located in Conakry, had capacity for 24 women, men, and children.  During the first quarter of 2023 the shelters accommodated over 100 victims of trafficking, including 12 children.  NGOs operated three shelters that could assist trafficking victims and a transit center funded by an international organization for returning migrants and child trafficking victims, which could provide emergency and short-term services and referrals for children to long-term care.  Government health facilities and social workers could provide medical and psycho-social services.  NGOs reported law enforcement referred child trafficking victims to NGOs on an ad hoc basis.  If NGO shelters were unavailable, the MoWP could place child victims with host families.Reports indicated victims and their parents were reluctant to file claims against traffickers due to a lack of confidence in the judicial system.  Judges could allow victims to provide testimony via video or written statements; however, no victims reportedly did so during the reporting period.  While the government did not have a formal victim-witness assistance program, it provided food and transportation to court hearings for 56 trafficking victims.  NGO-operated legal clinics and the national human rights association provided advice and support to victims of crime, including trafficking.  The 2016 penal code allowed NGOs to become plaintiffs on behalf of victims; the government did not report if NGOs utilized this provision during the reporting period.  Victims could legally obtain restitution from the government; and courts did order restitution during the reporting period.  Victims could file civil suits against their traffickers; however, no victims pursued this option, largely due to lack of awareness.  The government did not have formal policies to provide temporary or permanent residency to victims from countries where they would face hardship or retribution if repatriated, but it could provide work and residency permits to victims on an ad hoc basis; due to long standing freedom of movement policy with the Regional Economic Community, ECOWAS nationals did not require special status to remain in Guinea.  The government did not report any victims requesting these services during the reporting period.  Due to inconsistent use of formal identification procedures, authorities may have detained or otherwise inappropriately penalized some unidentified trafficking victims.																																												PREVENTION						    																																															The government maintained efforts to prevent trafficking.  The CNLTPPA, the government’s anti-trafficking coordinating body, met regularly.  The MoWP led the committee, which included the ministries of Justice, Security, Labor, Foreign Affairs, and Defense.  The government continued to allocate funds for equipment, supplies, and a dedicated communications budget to the CNLTPPA to support anti-trafficking efforts.  However, observers noted the CNLTPPA lacked authority to effectively implement anti-trafficking policy and coordinate government activities.The CNLTPPA, in partnership with civil society and foreign donors, organized several awareness campaigns on trafficking prevention and organized a national network of 22 NGOs working on human trafficking issues.  The government operated a hotline for calls concerning victims of crime, including human trafficking, and labor violations.  The government did not report statistics for how many calls the hotline received.  A separate, NGO-run hotline for victims of GBV fielded 1,869 calls in 2022.  The government prohibited recruitment agencies from assessing recruitment fees and had policies to regulate foreign labor recruiters and hold them civilly and criminally liable for fraudulent recruitment; however, neither OPROGEM nor the Ministry of Labor had the resources or the trained personnel to monitor and enforce these policies consistently and did not report referring any potential cases for investigation.  Despite the prevalence of child forced labor, labor inspectors conducted 411 inspections and did not report finding any child labor violations.  The government did not report providing training on child labor laws to labor inspectors.  The MoWP continued coordinating interagency border control units to ensure children crossing international borders were traveling with their families.  The government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex.The government did not report providing anti-trafficking training to its diplomatic personnel.  The government provided human rights training, including on topics related to human trafficking, to its troops prior to their deployment as peacekeepers.  Although not explicitly reported as human trafficking, there was one open case of alleged sexual exploitation with trafficking indicators by a Guinean peacekeeper deployed to the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2019; the UN substantiated the allegations and repatriated the offender.  The government had not yet reported the accountability measures taken, if any, by the end of the reporting period.																																												TRAFFICKING PROFILE:						    																																															As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Guinea, and traffickers exploit victims from Guinea abroad.  Populations vulnerable to sex and labor trafficking in Guinea include individuals in commercial sex, including those from ECOWAS and other nations, adults and children working in the informal labor sector, homeless and orphaned children, artisanal miners, children and adults with albinism, and persons with mental disabilities.  Traffickers exploit boys in forced labor in begging, street vending, shoe shining, mining for gold and diamonds, herding, fishing, and agriculture, including farming and on coffee, cashew, and cocoa plantations.  Some government entities and NGOs allege that within Guinea, forced labor is most prevalent in the mining sector and in domestic work.  Traffickers exploit adults and children in forced labor in agriculture.  Reports indicate children are sent to the coastal region of Boke for forced labor on farms.  Children from villages in Middle and Upper Guinea may be more vulnerable to trafficking due to the region’s lack of schools and economic opportunities.  Government officials recognize the town of Koundara in northwestern Guinea as a transit point for traffickers.Traffickers, often distant relatives, promise to care for or provide an education to low-income relatives’ children and instead exploit them in domestic servitude or forced begging.  A public report from December 2022 and prior media reporting have indicated some teachers in Quranic schools force or coerce children to beg or work in agriculture, sometimes with their parents’ knowledge.  Some traffickers fraudulently recruit children under the pretext of educational opportunities and instead exploit them in forced begging in Quranic schools in Senegal – via the town of Koundara, Guinea.  Students are trafficked along routes through Mali and Guinea-Bissau.  Traffickers exploit Guinean children in forced labor in Cote d’Ivoire.  Guinea is a transit country for West African children subjected to forced labor in artisanal gold mining throughout the region.  A small number of girls from West African countries migrate to Guinea, where traffickers exploit them in domestic service, street vending, and – to a lesser extent – sex trafficking.  Child sex trafficking is prevalent in Conakry and in mining towns and camps in Lower and Upper Guinea.  North Korean nationals working in Guinea may be operating under exploitative working conditions and display multiple indicators of forced labor.  Cuban medical professionals working in Guinea may have been forced to work by the Cuban government.  Guinean authorities alleged traffickers coerce People’s Republic of China (PRC) women into commercial sex in PRC national-owned bars and restaurants in Conakry.Traffickers exploit Guinean women and girls in forced labor for domestic service and sex trafficking in West Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, as well as the United States.  During a previous reporting period, there were reports Guinean-Egyptian trafficking networks fraudulently recruit women for domestic work in Egypt and exploit them in commercial sex.  Irregular migrants traveling to Europe are vulnerable to trafficking networks facilitating travel by land from Guinea to North Africa, and subsequently exploiting migrants in forced labor or sex trafficking.  In a previous reporting period, an international organization reported an increase in fraudulent recruitment for forced labor in domestic service in the Middle East, especially Egypt and Kuwait.  There have been reports some Guinean men marry Guinean girls, take them to Angola, and sell the girls to local brothels while the men work in diamond mines.																																				    							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- Guinea HomeReportsOffice of International Religious Freedom2022 Report on International Religious Freedom&#8230;Guinea				hide	document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function(event) {	if(window.jQuery) {		jQuery( document ).ready(function() {			if (jQuery(".bc_middle").hasClass("collapse")) {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});				jQuery(".bc_hide").click(function(){					jQuery(".bc_hide").toggleClass("visible");					jQuery(".bc_middle").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_ellipse").toggle();					jQuery(".bc_content").toggleClass("noflex");					jQuery(".block_breadcrumbs_content").toggleClass("noflex");				});			} else {				jQuery(".bc_ellipse").hide();			}		});	}});																							2022 Report on International Religious Freedom: Guinea																																					Office of International Religious Freedom																																																																																							Download Report																																																																																	 In this section										/																							Executive Summary																																													Executive Summary																															Section I. Religious Demography																																																																																		Section II. Status of Government Respect for Religious Freedom																																																									Legal Framework																																																																											Government Practices																																																																																	Section III. Status of Societal Respect for Religious Freedom																																																																																		Section IV. U.S. Government Policy and Engagement																																																																																																								Executive Summary				The country’s constitutional elected government was overthrown in a military coup d’état in September 2021. The self-proclaimed National Committee for Reconciliation and Development (CNRD) suspended the constitution and dissolved the National Assembly. The CNRD’s Transition Charter, which serves in lieu of a constitution, states the country is a secular state and any act undermining the secular nature of the state or one’s religious freedom is to be considered a “high crime” punishable by fines and imprisonment. The penal code provides for freedom of worship within limits defined by the law. In addition, the Transition Charter stipulates that two members of the National Transition Council, the current national legislative body, are to be religious community representatives.The cabinet-level Secretariat General of Religious Affairs (SRA) continued to issue weekly themes for inclusion in Friday sermons at mosques and Sunday sermons in churches. Although the SRA did not control sermons at every mosque and church, its inspectors continued to be present in every region and were responsible for ensuring that mosque and church sermons were consistent with SRA directives. In September, the SRA prohibited an imam from preaching and accused him of “gross misconduct” after he posted a video on social media in which he criticized the President of the Transition (the interim president). A Wahhabi mosque, closed by local authorities in September 2021 for noncompliance with government regulations regarding places of worship, reopened for Friday prayers in February following a conflict-resolution mission by the Secretary General of the SRA. Following a two-year suspension due to COVID-19, the annual Muslim pilgrimage resumed, with the SRA authorizing 4,527 pilgrims to travel to Mecca.In February, the Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralization attempted to resolve a long-running land dispute between an Indigenous Muslim Susu group and the Catholic monastery in Kendoumaya, Lower Guinea. Both sides welcomed the government’s intervention, but by year’s end, the dispute was not resolved and a number of related legal cases remained pending in the courts. In May, the marriage of a well-known Christian journalist to a Muslim woman fueled widespread public debate about interfaith marriages and created social and religious tension, according in the press and on social media. The parents of the woman requested the authorities to annul the marriage. The controversy led a blogger to form a movement in support of the woman’s family against the marriage and to organize a demonstration to protest the marriage. Authorities arrested and prosecuted the blogger for posting threats and insults on social media likely to disturb the public order; he was later released under judicial supervision.The Ambassador and other U.S. embassy officials met on multiple occasions with SRA officials, the Grand Imam, the Catholic Archbishop of Conakry, Baha’i leaders, and Jehovah’s Witnesses to discuss religious tolerance, reconciliation, and social cohesion. In April, the Ambassador hosted an iftar with U.S. government-funded exchange program alumni, fostering a cross-cultural discussion on issues of religious tolerance and diversity in the country. Funding from the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative supported training for Islamic leaders to incorporate messaging to counter malaria into their sermons and religious ceremonies. The embassy regularly posted messages encouraging religious tolerance on its social media platforms during major religious holidays including Ramadan, Tabaski (Eid al-Adha), and Easter.																														Section I.													 Religious Demography												    																																															The U.S. government estimates the total population at 13.2 million (midyear 2022).  According to the SRA, approximately 85 percent of the population is Muslim, 8 percent are Christian, and 7 percent adhere to Indigenous religious or other beliefs.  Much of the Muslim and Christian populations incorporate Indigenous rituals into their religious practices.  Muslims are generally Maliki Sunni; Sufism is also present.  Christian groups include Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-day Adventists, and several evangelical groups.  There is also a small Baha’i community in addition to small numbers of Hindus, Buddhists, and adherents of traditional Chinese religious beliefs among foreign residents.Muslims constitute a majority in all four regions of the country.  Christians are concentrated in large cities, including Conakry, in southern coastal areas, and in the eastern Forest Region.  Adherents of Indigenous religious beliefs are most prevalent in the Forest Region.																																					Section II.													 Status of Government Respect for Religious Freedom												    																																																Legal Framework										The 2021 Transition Charter states that the country is a secular state and that any act undermining its secular nature or an individual’s religious freedom is to be considered a “high crime” punishable by fines and imprisonment. The penal code provides for freedom of worship “under the conditions and in the forms provided for by law.” The penal code states that any individual who through assault or threats prevents one or more persons from practicing their religion is punishable by one to three months’ imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 to one million Guinean francs ($58-$117). The penal code also states that preventing, delaying, or interrupting religious practices in a place of worship by public disturbance is punishable by two to six months’ imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 to one million Guinean francs ($58-$117). In addition, the penal code states that any person who in any way desecrates a place of worship or objects of worship within the place of worship may be punished by six months to one year’s imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 to one million Guinean francs ($58-$117). Anyone who insults a religious leader in the function of his or her duties may be punished by six months to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 to one million Guinean francs ($58-$117). If the individual also threatens, assaults, or injures the religious leader, the punishment is increased to two to five years’ imprisonment, with the same fine.In addition, the Transition Charter stipulates two religious community members serve as representatives on the 81-member CNT, the country’s current legislative body, installed in February. An assistant to the Grand Imam of Conakry (who also serves as the second vice president of the CNT), and the bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Guinea and Guinea-Bissau were the two members named respectively by the Islamic and Christian councils of the country.The Transition Charter did not change the laws and processes applicable to the registration of religious groups or the overall authorities of the SRA. The SRA must approve all religious groups. Groups must provide a written constitution and application to the SRA along with their address and a fee of 250,000 Guinean francs ($29). The SRA then sends the documents to the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization for final approval and signature. Once approved, the group becomes officially recognized. Every six months, each registered religious group must present a report of its activities to the government. Registering with the government entitles religious groups to an exemption from the value-added tax (VAT) on imported shipments and makes them eligible for select energy subsidies.Unregistered religious groups are not entitled to VAT exemptions and other benefits. By law, the government may shut down unregistered groups and expel their leaders. There is limited opportunity for legal appeal of these penalties.Religious groups may not own radio or television stations.The compulsory primary school curriculum does not include religious studies. Many parents send their children to Quranic schools (madrassahs), either in addition to primary school or as their primary form of education.The imams and administrative staff of the principal mosque in Conakry and the principal mosques in the main cities of the country’s four regions are government employees. These mosques are directly under the administration of the government. Other mosques and some Christian groups receive government subsidies for pilgrimages.The SRA appoints national directors to lead the Offices of Christian Affairs, Islamic Affairs, Pilgrimages, Places of Worship, Economic Affairs, the Endowment, and Inspector General, which all fall under the SRA. The SRA is charged with promoting good relations among religious groups and coordinates with other members of the informal Interreligious Council, which is composed of the SRA and representatives from the Islamic faith and the Catholic, Anglican, and other Protestant churches.The country is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.																																				Government Practices										On September 15, the SRA stated that Imam Elhadj Yaya Camara was prohibited from “preaching or speaking in the name of Islam in public” after he committed what the SRA termed “gross misconduct.” The SRA acted a few days after Camara posted a video on Facebook in which he criticized President of the Transition Mamadi Doumbouya and denounced the high cost of living. He also stated that many Guineans no longer supported Doumbouya. In 2019, the country’s previous government removed Yaya Camara from his duties as imam of the mosque of Kignifi village, a Conakry suburb, after Yaya Camara opposed a third term for then-President Alpha Conde, whom Doumbouya toppled in 2021. Yaya Camara immediately appealed the September decision to the Supreme Court, which denied his appeal on December 1. His lawyer said that his client was never summoned to testify before the religious authorities who had prohibited him from preaching.The SRA continued to issue guidance outlining themes for discussion during Friday sermons at mosques and Sunday sermons in churches. The stated purpose of the weekly guidance was to harmonize religious views to prevent radical or political messages in sermons. Although the SRA did not monitor sermons at every mosque and church, its inspectors continued to be present in every region and were responsible for ensuring that mosque and church sermons were consistent with SRA directives. The SRA continued to discipline clerics it judged to be noncompliant through warnings, temporary suspensions, and permanent dismissals. Although deviations from approved guidance were often reported in various sermons at mosques and other Islamic events, the SRA said it continued to have difficulty imposing disciplinary sanctions due to a lack of funding and resources.According to the SRA, Imam Elhadj Moussa Doumbouya, whom the SRA barred from preaching in 2021 for violating a COVID-19 ban on evening prayers during Ramadan, was permitted to resume preaching in March. He replaced another imam at a mosque in the Senkefara, Upper Guinea.A Wahhabi mosque located in Misside Hinde, which local religious authorities in Labe in Middle Guinea had closed in September 2021, reopened for Friday prayers in February following a conflict-resolution mission carried out by the SRA Secretary General the same month. The mosque had been closed for noncompliance with government guidance regarding places of worship, following a complaint from a more moderate Tijaniyah Sufi group in the area. The SRA Secretary General also utilized the mission to meet Tijani and Sunni groups, whose continuing disagreements, according to the SRA, indicated a lack of respect for each other’s interpretations of Islamic religious practices and teaching methods in mosques and in Quranic learning centers, and differing adherence to SRA regulations.Some religious groups stated they preferred not to have a formal relationship with the SRA. For example, although formally registered with the SRA, the Baha’is did not take part in activities initiated by the SRA in order to maximize internal control over their own religious practices.Jehovah’s Witnesses have been registered in the country since 1993 as a religious association. In September, the organization applied to renew their registration, but the procedure was not completed by year’s end due to administrative processing delays, according to the group’s local president.The Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca resumed in July after a two-year suspension caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The SRA authorized travel for 4,527 pilgrims.Islamic schools continued to be prevalent throughout the country and remained the traditional forum for religious education. Some Islamic schools were wholly private, while others received local government support. Islamic schools, particularly common in the Fouta Djallon highland area, taught the compulsory government curriculum, along with additional Quranic studies. Private Christian schools in Conakry and other large cities continued to accept students of all religious groups. These schools taught the compulsory curriculum without government support and held voluntary Christian prayers before school.Many Muslim students not enrolled in private Islamic schools continued to receive religious education at madrassahs, some of which were associated with mosques and others supported by local communities. Unlike Islamic schools, the madrassahs did not teach the compulsory primary school curriculum. The government did not recognize the madrassahs nor require them to register, allowing them to operate freely. They focused on Quranic studies, and instruction was in Arabic rather than the French used in most other schools. Funds from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Gulf states supported some madrassahs. Most students in madrassahs also attended part-time public or private schools that taught the compulsory curriculum.The government continued to allocate free broadcast time on state-owned national television for Islamic and Christian programming, including Islamic religious instruction, Friday prayers, and church services. The government permitted religious broadcasting on privately owned commercial radio and encouraged equal time for Christian and Muslim groups.																																					Section III.													 Status of Societal Respect for Religious Freedom												    																																															On January 23, animist residents of Kolakpata reportedly attacked an evangelical Christian church and the homes of its pastor and members after previously requesting that the church be closed.  According to local media, the residents were upset that the church would not permit the animists’ end-of-year celebration rituals.  Media said the church, the pastor’s home, and two other homes were destroyed.  The public prosecutor said the incident would be investigated, but it was not completed by year end.On February 22, a high-level mission led by the Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralization, accompanied by local authorities, attempted to negotiate a settlement between Indigenous Muslim Susu villagers and the Catholic Saint-Jean monastery over a long-running land dispute in Kendoumaya, Lower Guinea.  Villagers claimed as theirs parcels of land near the monastery, which they began selling to third parties in 2020, and they said the church had not honored earlier commitments to pave the main road from Coyah to Kendoumaya, provide electricity to the village, and build a local school.  In 2021, the church’s lawyer said the church had made no such commitments, and church authorities stated then that such projects could only be carried out by the government, because of the costs.  The disagreements led to demonstrations and occasional violence, including an attack on a monk by villagers in 2021 that aroused indignation within the broader Christian community and worsened tensions, according to monastery leaders.  According to the church’s lawyer, the villagers publicly admitted ceding land to the church in the past, but following the demonstrations and violence, they demanded a return of the church’s rights to the land.  The church claimed that a social movement focused on recovering ancestral lands from outside settlers, such as the church, had manipulated the villagers into changing their stance on the land.  According to media reports, villagers and the church welcomed government involvement to resolve the issue.  By year’s end, the dispute had not been resolved, and various related cases filed by the church and by villagers in 2020 and 2021 remained pending in the courts.  The two sides continued to negotiate under instructions from the Minister to the Governor of the region to maintain dialogue until the conflict was resolved.In parts of the country, especially the middle and upper regions, particularly strong familial, communal, cultural, social, or economic pressure continued to discourage conversion from Islam, according to observers.In May, the marriage of a well-known Christian radio journalist to a Muslim woman fueled public debate, generated critical postings on social media, and created social and religious tensions, according to local media reports.  The woman&#8217;s family accused the husband of forcing their daughter to convert to Christianity and asked authorities to annul the marriage.  Muslim and Christian religious leaders also expressed their views about the marriage.  The Grand Imam of Conakry told local media that Islam does not allow a non-Muslim man to marry a Muslim woman.  The head of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the country argued against the marriage in the local press, noting that if a pastor celebrated a marriage without consent of one of the families, he violated an Old Testament passage which required a couple to have the same ideals for a marriage.  An evangelist from a small community of Christian converts maintained that the woman was rejected by her family because of her choice and therefore she had the right to marry without involving her family.  On May 17, a Muslim blogger created an online “Movement for the Defense of Our Values” to support the woman’s family and organized a sit-in in front of the headquarters of the journalist’s radio station to protest the marriage.  On instructions from a local prosecutor, the judicial police arrested the blogger and charged him with making public threats and insults and making available information on social media likely to disturb public order; both are civil offenses.  On June 7, the blogger was released without trial and placed under judicial supervision, which involved regular court visits and limits on his freedom of movement.According to the SRA, in July, a church was burned in the Forest Region.  The victims did not take the case to the authorities, however, and the SRA had no additional information on the incident.																																					Section IV.													 U.S. Government Policy and Engagement												    																																															The U.S. Ambassador and other embassy officials met on multiple occasions with SRA officials, the Grand Imam, the Catholic Archbishop, Baha’i leaders, and Jehovah’s Witnesses to discuss religious tolerance, reconciliation, and social cohesion.On February 10 and October 19, the Ambassador and other embassy officials participated in official tours of the Conakry Grand Mosque, the fourth largest mosque in Africa, and met with the Grand Imam to discuss religious freedom and tolerance.  When the transition government presented the results of the national reconciliation conference on August 24 and opened the national dialogue on November 24, the Ambassador, the Grand Imam, and the Catholic Archbishop of Conakry discussed the importance of religious freedom and tolerance in the country.The Ambassador hosted an iftar for U.S.-funded exchange program alumni on April 14 that fostered an interfaith, cross-cultural discussion on issues of religious tolerance and diversity and connected members of various faith communities in the country.Throughout the year, training programs funded by the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative in 596 mosques across the country helped Islamic leaders incorporate community messaging to counter malaria into their sermons and religious ceremonies.The embassy also implemented a program against female genital mutilation that emphasized that religion does not recommend this practice and conveyed messages of religious tolerance towards women and girls who were victims.  The program included engagement with influential religious leaders in promoting religious tolerance.The embassy regularly posted messages on its social media platforms on major religious holidays, including Ramadan, Tabaski, and Easter to encourage religious tolerance.																																				    							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Religious Demography																																																	Section II. Status of Government Respect for Religious Freedom																																							Legal Framework																																																						Government Practices																																																			Section III. Status of Societal Respect for Religious Freedom																																																	Section IV. U.S. Government Policy and Engagement																																																							Tags																					Bureau of African Affairs																								Guinea																								Office of International Religious Freedom																																Religious Freedom