Freedom of Southern Cameroons Christians is increasingly under threat ⁰

One of the numerous Court of First Instance in the Buea County in Southern Cameroons has dropped a case against Christian leaders, the first case about the role of the Church since the beginning of the Southern Cameroons uprising.

The Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buea and the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon were charged following an educational crisis that rocked academic establishments in West Cameroon.  The charges against them all have been dropped.

Southern Cameroons Christian leaders are yet to issue any statement welcoming their acquittal as hundreds of Southern Cameroonian Christians have been arrested for distributing  pamphlets about West Cameroons quest for an independent state.

It was Southern Cameroons’s first religious case since the Anglophone crisis started some 11 months ago.  While the Biya Francophone regime recognises the right for government schools to be closed during Southern Cameroons protests, shutting down mission schools hosting a sea of Francophone students is prohibited.

In a recent editorial published in Cameroon Intelligence Report on strengthening the persecuted church, our editor-in-chief Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai opined that the freedom of Southern Cameroons Christians is increasingly under threat.

The Francophone government in Yaounde officially announced that the case against the Bishops of the Bamenda Ecclesiastic Province including the PCC Moderator has been discontinued. We gathered the discontinuation came after the disgraced Minister for Justice, Laurent Esso told Justice Mengalle Vivian eps Achiri to rule in favour of an application for a Nolle Prosequio made by the State Prosecutor, Emile Esombe.

By Chi Prudence Asong, CCN