On July 27, 2026, former Togolese Minister of Defense Marguerite Gnakadé began a hunger strike behind bars, refusing all food to protest her treatment. Eleven months after her arrest for publicly criticizing President Faure Gnassingbé’s governance, her protest amplifies the voices of over sixty political detainees still held in Togolese prisons.

Her journey from power to imprisonment began on August 30, 2025, when Lomé erupted in protests led by a frustrated youth demanding economic relief and opposing a constitutional reform that shifted Togo into a parliamentary system. Marguerite Gnakadé, Togo’s first female defense minister (2020–2022), joined the demonstrations. Security forces intervened, briefly detaining her before her eventual arrest on September 17, 2025—charged with publicly questioning the president’s leadership.

From power to symbol of political prisoners

Gnakadé’s defiance stands in stark contrast to her past. Appointed defense minister in October 2020 without a military background, she was also the late Ernest Gnassingbé’s widow, brother of the sitting president. Yet her familial ties offered no protection once she chose to align with the opposition rather than the regime.

« We embark on this hunger strike not out of despair, but conviction. When justice remains silent, our bodies become the last cry for freedom. »
Joint statement from hunger-striking political detainees, November 2025

Desperate measures under inhumane detention conditions

Gnakadé’s strike reflects a growing trend. Since 2025, hunger strikes have emerged as one of the few tools available to Togolese political prisoners to demand change. In November 2025, thirty-seven detainees initiated a collective fast. By December, activists Grâce Koumayi and binational Abdoul Aziz Goma endured fifty days without food at Lomé’s civil prison, prompting temporary concessions from authorities. Human rights groups now insist on immediate medical access for all hunger strikers.

Contrasting fates of former regime insiders

Gnakadé’s case diverges from others like Kpatcha Gnassingbé and General Félix Kadanga, both former regime insiders now behind bars. Kpatcha, half-brother of the president and former defense minister, served sixteen years for an alleged coup attempt before receiving a presidential pardon in December 2025. General Kadanga, Togo’s former army chief, has served since 2023 on a twenty-year sentence for complicity in a colonel’s murder. Gnakadé remains the only one imprisoned solely for expressing dissent.

Togo’s unrest after constitutional overhaul

Tensions escalated after March 2024, when a new constitution replaced Togo’s presidential system with a parliamentary one, granting Faure Gnassingbé the role of Council of Ministers president—without term limits. Critics labeled the reform a « constitutional coup. » The 2025 youth-led « Gen Z » protests, met with harsh repression, resulted in waves of arrests, swelling the ranks of political detainees.

In a late December 2025 gesture, the president pardoned 1,511 prisoners, hailed as a conciliatory move. Civil society groups, however, estimate up to seventy political prisoners remain jailed.

NGO pressure and calls for detainee releases

The « Don’t Touch My Constitution » coalition and opposition parties continue advocating for the release of all political prisoners. Reports indicate at least nine detainees have died in custody since the crackdown began, with others suffering from abuse. They demand the immediate, unconditional release of all political detainees and urgent medical care for hunger strikers like Gnakadé, whose health has deteriorated after eleven months in detention.