Last November, during the swearing-in ceremony that marked the beginning of his seventh term as Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya addressed frustrated voters in the restive Anglophone regions and around the country, calling for unity and insisting he had heard their pleas for change. “I have also understood your desire for greater participation in taking decisions that concern the destiny of our country,” he said.

His critics had good reason to be skeptical, given Biya’s long record of ignoring criticism from the political opposition and the population at large. And in recent days, they appear to have been proved right: A new crackdown on the opposition has sent a strong signal that Biya’s current term will look much like the previous six.

Over the weekend, opposition leaders, who have challenged the credibility of last year’s election results, organized demonstrations in multiple cities, prompting a forceful response from the security forces, who dispersed crowds with tear gas and live ammunition. Among the injured, according to Amnesty International, was Celestin Djamen, a top official in the opposition Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon, or MRC.

Then, on Monday, security forces arrested Maurice Kamto, the leader of the MRC who, according to official results, finished second to Biya in the presidential contest. The charges against Kamto include sedition and insurrection. The case against him appears to be part of a coordinated assault on opposition leaders and their supporters; the MRC says more than 200 people have been detained since the weekend protests.

In an in-depth report for WPR last year, Emmanuel Freudenthal described how Biya has used an array of tactics to undermine potential challengers. Some have been co-opted via appointments to government posts, while others have been prosecuted on corruption charges widely seen as politically motivated. The president has been aided by the fact that Western powers see him as a steady ally in a volatile region and are therefore inclined to look the other way when it comes to his handling of domestic affairs.

Yet as he has shown in the past, and as he reiterated this week, Biya is not above using more violent means to keep the opposition quiet. Cameroonians should soon have a better sense of whether the recent violence will turn into sustained repression. The MRC is planning to hold more demonstrations in the coming weeks, and another harsh response by the state could tip the country into a full-fledged crisis.

Rights groups and the United Nations are appealing for restraint. In a statement Wednesday, Human Rights Watch said further violence in Cameroon, which currently holds a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, would be unacceptable.

“The Cameroon government can’t claim to respect human rights while using the standard playbook of abusers to crush opposition and curtail freedom of speech and assembly,” said Ida Sawyer, the group’s deputy Africa director. “Cameroon’s international partners should condemn Biya’s blatant and unwarranted clampdown on the political opposition.”

Source: World Politics Review

Cameroonian authorities should immediately investigate an attack on Paul Chouta, a reporter for the privately owned news website Cameroon Web, and ensure that those who assaulted him are swiftly brought to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Chouta told CPJ yesterday that three unknown men stabbed him with a knife and beat him as he left his Yaoundé home just after 6 a.m. that day. The journalist was treated for stab wounds to his right hand and elbow and bruises to his face. “They didn’t say anything as they started to physically attack me,” said Chouta. “My neighbors came to my rescue and the attackers fled in a black Mercedes that had been waiting for them.”

Chouta and Emmanuel Vitus, the editor-in-chief of Cameroon Web, told CPJ they believe the attack was in retaliation for Chouta’s journalism. Vitus said he suspected the attack may be related to a January 22 Facebook Live interview Chouta did with Paul Eric Kingué, the campaign manager for Cameroon’s jailed opposition leader, Maurice Kamto.

Kamto has been mobilizing dissent against President Paul Biya since losing the October election, which he has described as fraudulent, Al-Jazeera reported.

“We urge Cameroonian authorities to ensure that those who attacked Paul Chouta are identified and punished to the full extent of the law,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal in New York. “The government needs to send a message to those who want to silence and intimidate journalists that just because they may disagree with what the press writes or says, they cannot resort to violence and escape accountability.”

Vitus said that Chouta broadcast the interview on his personal Facebook page, which has 54,000 followers, and that Cameroon Web shared it on its platforms. He added, “The attack doesn’t come as a surprise. He consistently receives threats.” Vitus said the journalist received threatening comments on social media.

Chouta reported the attack to the police yesterday. National police spokesperson Joyce Ndjem told CPJ she does not give comment over the phone and that CPJ would need to come to Yaoundé to request comment.

The attack on Chouta came the same week that police arrested Théodore Tchopa and David Eyengue Nzima from the privately owned daily, Le Jour. Denis Nkwebo, deputy editor-in-chief of Le Jour and president of the Cameroonian journalists’ trade union, told CPJ that the journalists were arrested while covering an opposition meeting in Douala on January 28. The journalists were released without charge, Nkwebo said.

At the time of CPJ’s annual prison census, Cameroon was the third worst jailer of journalists in Africa after Egypt and Eritrea, respectively, with at least seven journalists behind bars for their work as of December 1, 2018.

Source: CPJ.org