Alfredo Okenve, a leading civil society activist and vice-president of the Center for Development Studies and Initiatives (CEID), was severely beaten up at gunpoint on 27 October 2018. Plain-clothed policemen carried out a prolonged attack, before abandoning him on deserted land. Equatorial Guinea has twice attempted to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) – a leading multi-stakeholder initiative for transparency and good governance in the extractives sector. These applications were both rejected due to unjustified crackdowns on civil society activists. Several international civil society organizations called on oil companies, especially those on the board of or supportive of the EITI, to denounce the attack on Alfredo Okenve as unfit for a country wishing to rejoin the EITI initiative. We reached out to these companies for a public response; Total & Clontarf Energy responded.