11, November 2018
The rise and rise of Mimi Mefo, the killing of Charles Wesco and the Tchiroma disgrace 0
The Cameroon government defended the arrest of a journalist who accused military forces of responsibility for the recent killing of American missionary Charles Wesco last month, reasserting that it was separatist ammunition found in his head and body.
Cameroon Minister of Communications Issa Tchiroma Bakary issued a lengthy statement Thursday, providing more details about the death late last month of the Indiana Baptist missionary, who the United States government believes was caught in “crossfire” in ongoing conflict between the Cameroon army and English-speaking separatist forces in the northwest Anglophone region.
The statement was issued in response to international advocates who have criticized the government for arresting journalist Mimi Mefo Takombo, the English desk editor and journalist for Equinoxe Television, this week for reporting that the Cameroon army killed Wesco.
The journalist is being held at New-Bell Central Prison in Douala and has been charged with “dissemination of fake news,” and “news lies likely to harm public authorities or national cohesion” — crimes punishable under Cameroon criminal code section 113 that bars the “propagation of false information.”
She was also charged with “incitement to revolt against the Government and Institutions of the Republic.” Bakary repeated the government’s previous claims that “terrorists” were on the move to attack a university in Bamenda and a military brigade at around 10 a.m. on Oct. 30 when Wesco, a fellow missionary, his wife and child were driving to go shopping in a rural area just outside of Bamenda.
Previous reports had indicated that bullets struck the car and killed Wesco, while others in the vehicle survived. According to Bakary’s statement, Wesco “received a 12-gauge oblique bird-shot fired by a sneaky terrorist.”
“Several pellets reached the victim at the parietal level of his skull, one below the lower right jaw and the last one at the level of his shoulder,” the statement explains. “He eventually succumbed to his wounds.”
The government said that Wesco’s body was subject to investigation by police forces and his remains were then transferred to a hospital, where an autopsy was performed in the presence of Cameroonian and American forensic doctors, a U.S. Embassy representative and the commissioner to the Yaoundé Military Court.
“During the autopsy, the pellets extracted from the remains confirmed that the shots that killed Reverend Charles Truman Wesco did indeed come from a 12-gauge weapon which is, as we know, used by the secessionist terrorists operating in the North-West and South-West regions,” Bakary asserted. “The impacts left by the shots were effectively located in the right parietal part of the skull, the right face and the right shoulder of the victim; all things that confirm the position of the shooter stationed on the right side of the vehicle, a position occupied by the terrorists at the time of the incident.”
Bakary accused the journalist of “altering the reality of the facts” and “spreading manifest untruths.” Bakary said Takombo’s claims were “highly detrimental to the morale of the troops” in their “loyal and legal fight against criminal hordes with a secessionist agenda.”
Takombo’s arrest has drawn the ire of international advocates, such as the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. “Cameroon cannot be allowed to suppress coverage of unrest in its western, Anglophone regions by detaining journalists like Mimi Mefo. She must be released immediately,” CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney said in a statement. “The charge of publishing information that infringes on territorial integrity is a laughable smokescreen for censorship, plain and simple.”
Libom Li Likeng, Cameroon’s telecommunications minister, told Voice of America that propagation of false information on social media is punishable by six months to two years in prison and a fine that could range from $8,000 to $16,000.
Takombo’s arrest comes as other journalists have been detained for several weeks. Wesco is survived by his wife, Stephanie, and eight children. The Wescos sold most of their possessions in the United States and moved to Cameroon last month to serve as missionaries sent by the Believers Baptist Church in Warsaw, Indiana. An online fundraising page benefiting the family has raised over $100,000 in nine days.
Stephanie Wesco and her children arrived safely back in the United States this week, according to an update from the GoFundMe page’s organizer, Matthew Barnes. “It was my high honor and privilege to assist in picking up the Charles-Stephanie Wesco family at the airport this evening,” he wrote in the update. “The Wesco family are modern day heroes of the faith.”
The family will hold a funeral for Wesco next Monday at Community Baptist Church in South Bend, Indiana.
Source: The Christian Post
Now that you are here
The Cameroon Concord News Group Board wishes to inform its faithful readers that for more than a decade, it has been providing world-class reports of the situation in Southern Cameroons. The Board has been priding itself on its reports which have helped the world to gain a greater understanding of the crisis playing out in Southern Cameroons. It hails its reporters who have also helped the readers to have a broader perspective of the political situation in Cameroon.
The Board wishes to thank its readers who have continued to trust Southern Cameroon’s leading news platform. It is therefore using this opportunity to state that its reporters are willing to provide more quality information to the readers. However, due to the changing global financial context, the Board is urging its readers to play a significant role in the financing of the news organization. It is therefore calling on its faithful readers to make whatever financial contribution they can to ensure they get the latest developments in their native Southern Cameroons, in particular, and Cameroon in general.
Bank transaction: Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai
Banking IBAN: GB51 BARC 2049 1103 9130 15
Swift BIC BARC GB22XX
SORT CODE 20-49-11, ACCOUNT NUMBER – 03913015 Barclay PLC, UK
The Board looks forward to hearing from the readers.
Signed by the Group Chairman on behalf of the Board of Directors
Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai
Email: soteragbawebai@gmail.com
13, November 2018
“You treated my case with an exceptional and undiluted attention” Mimi Mefo on regaining her freedom 0
Dear Family,
I want to begin this appreciative note by thanking God almighty for my release from the Douala Central Prison in New Bell on Saturday November 10, 2018. God’s love towards his children is ever fresh and ever growing.
To YOU my friends, you demonstrated that a friend in need is a friend indeed. I will forever remain indebted to the numerous calls through my lawyers and mother, your visits, your gifts and your prayers.
To YOU my visual friends (social media platforms) yes, we have never met, but you treated my case with an exceptional and undiluted attention. All over, you changed your profile pictures, wrote messages, and contributed money for my defense among others. I ask myself today, what I really did, to have deserved these special treatments from you, whom I describe today as “Good Samaritans.” God bless you.
To YOU my colleagues, I have never seen such a solidarity demonstrated by media men and women in Cameroon. Tears ran down my cheeks when I read the stories you published in your newspapers, online campaigns on websites, radio and television reports. In fact I can now say, we have reached that level of mobilization we used to see only in the judicial core.
Special thanks to the National Union of Cameroonian Journalists, SNJC, which took the case to another level by also providing me with a defense team. I cannot forget the indefatigable efforts put in place by CAMASEJ Douala Chapter and National Bureau to mount pressure for my release.
To YOU Equinoxe Television and my immediate colleagues, I watched a replay of the news and it made me cry. You did not only stand for me, but you stood for justice and press freedom. You all had sleepless nights, from my bosses, Mr Sèverin Tchounkeu, Theophile Biamou and to every member of La Nouvelles Expression media group; God bless you all for standing by me till this moment.
To YOU my family, you gave me comfort, you gave me hope, you gave me attention and I want to say today that I am happy to have come from our wonderful family. Family is indeed gold.
To YOU my defense team, you demonstrated resilience and professionalism, even without taking a dime, you defended me, you stood by me and provided every legal assistance till my release, the case might still be on but you have fought a good fight.
I am happy for my release but at the same time I feel that every journalist who is in prison today needs to be out. Their place is on the field, gathering and disseminating information and not in jail. I have been a strong advocate of press freedom and that has not changed.
Thank YOU all, friends, colleagues, lawyers, family, immense thanks to Cameroonians at home and in the Diaspora, National and international press, NGOs, Organisations, Associations, politicians and well wishers.
The God we serve is more powerful; and He bless us all
Mimi Mefo Takambou, Editor In Chief for English Service at EQUINOXE Television, Publisher Mimi Mefo Info
Now that you are here
The Cameroon Concord News Group Board wishes to inform its faithful readers that for more than a decade, it has been providing world-class reports of the situation in Southern Cameroons. The Board has been priding itself on its reports which have helped the world to gain a greater understanding of the crisis playing out in Southern Cameroons. It hails its reporters who have also helped the readers to have a broader perspective of the political situation in Cameroon.
The Board wishes to thank its readers who have continued to trust Southern Cameroon’s leading news platform. It is therefore using this opportunity to state that its reporters are willing to provide more quality information to the readers. However, due to the changing global financial context, the Board is urging its readers to play a significant role in the financing of the news organization. It is therefore calling on its faithful readers to make whatever financial contribution they can to ensure they get the latest developments in their native Southern Cameroons, in particular, and Cameroon in general.
Bank transaction: Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai
Banking IBAN: GB51 BARC 2049 1103 9130 15
Swift BIC BARC GB22XX
SORT CODE 20-49-11, ACCOUNT NUMBER – 03913015 Barclay PLC, UK
The Board looks forward to hearing from the readers.
Signed by the Group Chairman on behalf of the Board of Directors
Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai
Email: soteragbawebai@gmail.com