More than a hundred people from Cameroon’s Anglophone regions and its main political opposition party, arrested over the past five years for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly, are still languishing in jail, where some have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, Amnesty International said today as it launches a new campaign to release them.

Over the past five years, the human rights situation has grown increasingly bleak as people from Anglophone regions, including journalists, human rights defenders, activists and supporters of political opposition, have been arrested and jailed for expressing their opinions or peacefully protesting.

The campaign, ‘Don’t shut them up: Free victims of arbitrary detention now’, calls on the authorities to immediately release people arrested for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly.

The campaign focuses on dozens of individuals from the Northwest and Southwest Anglophone regions, arrested for taking part in peaceful protests, and at least 107 supporters of opposition party Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC).

Most of the jailed individuals were tried before military courts — in violation of international human rights law — and sentenced under the country’s repressive 2014 anti-terror law.

“We call on the Cameroonian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all those incarcerated for practicing their rights to free speech and peaceful protest. They should also rescind the overly broad anti-terror law, which has been used to criminalize protesters for years,” said Fabien Offner.

Anglophone detainees tortured

Thousands of people, including lawyers, teachers and human rights defenders, took part in largely peaceful demonstrations in late 2016 that called for greater rights in the two Anglophone regions.

More than 1,000 Anglophone people arrested between 2016 and 2021 in relation to the Anglophone crisis are behind bars in at least 10 prisons across the country, including 650 in Buea, 280 in Yaoundé, 181 in Douala and 101 in Bafoussam. Dozens have been arbitrarily detained.

We call on the Cameroonian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all those incarcerated for practicing their rights to free speech and peaceful protest.

According to testimonies gathered by Amnesty International, many of them were held incommunicado and suffered torture and other ill-treatment, including beatings and lashes, deprivation of food and water for days, mock drownings and forced extraction of fingernails. 

On 25 May 2018, the Yaoundé military court sentenced eight people to lengthy prison sentences under the anti-terror law, including journalist Tsi Conrad, who was arrested in Bamenda on 8 December 2016 after attending a protest. Conrad was sentenced to 15 years in prison for terrorism-related offences. In May 2021, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said Conrad’s detention was arbitrary and called for his release.

Penn Terence Khan, the vice principal of a high school in Bamenda, was arrested on 17 January 2017 and sentenced on 10 April 2018 to 12 years in prison and fined 15 million CFA francs (23,000 euros) by the Yaoundé military court. His charges included “complicity in secession, financing of terrorism and complicity with the rebellion”, yet the only piece of evidence was a T-shirt with the words “Diaspora South Africa Standing behind West Cameroonians 4 a Federal Cameroon” and “We are Cameroonians, we are not extremists” printed on it.

Protest leader Ngalim Felix Safeh, a member of the separatist Southern Cameroon National Council party, wasarrested on 29 November 2016 and placed in pre-trial detention on 7 February 2017. He was charged with “apology for terrorism, attempted murder, insurrection, group rebellion and degradation of public goods”. More than five years after his arrest, he remains in pre-trial detention. His case has seen nearly 90 adjournments before the Yaoundé military court.

Mancho Bibixy Tse, a protest leader and radio journalist based in Bamenda, was also tried before a military court and sentenced to 15 years in prison for terrorism-related offences.

“The Cameroonian authorities must end their relentless assault on dissenting voices in the Anglophone regions. All others who have been arbitrarily detained with their right to a fair trial violated, must also be freed”, said Fabien Offner.

Political opposition and civil society targeted

As of 15 January 2022, 107 supporters and members of the MRC remained in detention after being arrested before, during and after taking part in demonstrations held in September 2020 to denounce the way upcoming regional elections were being organized, especially in relation to the Anglophone crisis.

A group of nearly 50 people were sentenced by military courts on 27 December 2021 for “insurrection”, “rebellion” and “endangering state security”. Olivier Bibou Nissack, the spokesperson for MRC President Maurice Kamto, and Alain Fogué, the MRC’s first vice president, were sentenced to seven years in prison for “revolution and rebellion” and “revolution, rebellion and gathering” respectively.

The next day, Awasum Mispa Fri, President of the ‘Women of the MRC’, was sentenced to seven years in prison for “complicity in revolution and rebellion”. Other MRC supporters were convicted and then released, having spent over a year in detention.

Numerous detainees are currently being held in prisons in Yaoundé, Douala, Bafoussam and Mfou. On 7 December 2021, Dorgelesse Nguessan was sentenced to five years in prison for “insurrection, assembly, meetings and public demonstrations” by the Douala military tribunal. Before she was transferred to Douala central prison on December 30, she was denied the right to wash in the police station where she was held and suffered an attempted sexual assault by a police officer.

Intifalia Oben, a 29-year-old trader and MRC supporter, was sentenced to five years in prison by the Yaoundé military court on 27 December. He was found guilty of “complicity in revolution and rebellion”. He was subjected to torture, including beatings and mock drownings, while in detention at the Defence Secretary of State (Secrétariat d’Etat à la Défense, SED).

MRC detainees have reported widespread use of torture and other ill-treatment by security forces, including the SED and the police in Yaoundé. On 5 November 2021, detainees at Yaoundé prison wrote to the President of the military tribunal to request their release and list the repeated violations of their rights.

A member of the Stand Up for Cameroon movement, Collins Nana, was arrested and after taking part in an MRC protest on 22 September 2020. He remains in detention after being sentenced to 18 months in prison by the Douala military court on 7 December 2021 for “insurrection, meetings and public demonstrations”.

Four other men from Stand Up for Cameroon —Etienne Ntsama, Moussa Bello, Mira Angoung, and Tehle Membou — were also arrested in September 2020 after attending a meeting at their Douala headquarters. They were sentenced to 16 months in prison by a Douala military tribunal on 31 December 2021 for conspiring to revolt, allegedly for having ‘mobilized’ ahead of the MRC’s 22 September marches.

“These frequent attacks on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, coupled with the widespread use of torture and trials of civilians by military courts, reveal the extent to which the Cameroonian authorities are normalizing the repression of critical voices. Their relentless repression must end” said Fabien Offner.

Culled from Amnesty International

When he went seeking glory at the VIP lounge of the Olembe Stadium, an architectural masterpiece, Jacques Fame Ndongo, Cameroon’s higher education minister, did not know he was stirring a hornet’s nest.

Fame Ndongo has been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons on many occasions and he knows he is not the most loved Cameroonian at this time, especially as he belongs to a government and a political party that has messed up things in a country once considered as an oasis of peace in a desert of chaos.

Fame Ndongo is no stranger to controversy and has crossed some of the reddest of the red lines which could have taken him to the Yaounde Maximum Security Prison known as Kondengui.

A few years ago, he manufactured a story about supplying laptops to Cameroon’s university students as a way of making the country’s president, Paul Biya, popular among the country’s youths; a story the head of state took down hook, line and sinker.

But Fame Ndongo’s real objective was not to make the president popular. He wanted to feather his own nest. A  project worth millions of dollars was a great opportunity for him to serve his parochial and selfish interest.

Fame Ndongo, a man noted for his grandiloquence, thought that things would just work like a conveyor belt and that the proceeds of his crime would hit his bank account with relative ease.

He is a man who overestimates himself and he thought he would   make quick work of the challenging project which became a millstone around his neck.

Once the project started hitting many bumps in its path, the learned professor came up with fake computer science theories he himself did not understand, sometimes enlisting his collaborators in crime to come and help him bamboozle Cameroonians who were already in the know of his selfish and misleading intentions.

The massive online protests about his embezzlement of funds allocated for the laptop computer program finally caught the president’s attention and many thought he would be caught out of the government in the next cabinet reshuffle.

During a ceremony in 2019 wherein cabinet ministers were extending their New Year Wishes to the head of state, Fame Ndongo, the desperate higher education minister, wanted to use that opportunity to demonstrate his enduring loyalty and unwavering support to President Paul Biya, but he was soundly and roundly humiliated in plain sight by the president.

The message was clear! Fame Ndongo was in trouble and his next destination was clearly visible. Kondengui has been a good place for many cabinet ministers who have fallen out of favor with the president and Fame does not like that residence.

In the cabinet reshuffle that succeeded that incident at the Unity Palace, Fame Ndongo was maintained in his position after many letters to the president and following the timely intervention of the president’s trusted friends.

But old habits diehard. Fame Ndongo will always be a repeat offender. He likes fame and loves lining his pocket with money that is not his.

It was fame that took him to the VIP lounge on that day when the Indomitable Lions were working hard to make Cameroonians proud.

Fame Ndongo, for his part, had organized a massive and a costly drinking party that has left Cameroonians heartbroken.

The cost of the wines, which were being consumed by Fame Ndongo’s lackeys, is what has angered Cameroonians. They could not believe their eyes and ears. To many, that is just the tip of the wasteful iceberg that is ruining the country.

A bottle of wine consumed by people who earn less than CFAF 40,000 was more than CFAF 3 miilion and many of such bottles of wine were uncorked on that unfortunate day.

A video of the party, which seemed to have been made in Heaven, tells of a bunch of sycophants forged in the crucible of corruption, extoling the virtues of the pompous and bombastic higher education minister.

But the fame Fame Ndongo got on that has become the next millstone around his neck. The head of state, Paul Biya, has ordered an investigation into the incident.

Social media has become a tool of governance and citizens in Cameroon and abroad are using it now as a whistleblowing mechanism which is causing many government officials to lose sleep.

Fame Ndongo is once more in hot water. He knows he has been in the eye of the storm for a long time and the wine incident may just be the last straw that might open the gates of Kondengui for him.

But it is not yet over. Fame Ndong still holds a trump card. He knows that the president loves his collaborators to always bow to him like angels do to God.

Being the crook he has always been, the learned criminal has already issued a motion of support,  pledging his unalloyed support to the head of state in whatever the president does.

Fame Ndongo has roped in  hundreds of people from the country’s South region just to demonstrate that the South, led by him, is solidly behind the president.

But this last gimmick may not work. The investigation has been launched and those in charge of the enquiry are already doing their work. The are meticulously analyzing the video and some of those identified in the video have already been questioned.

There is panic within the professor’s cycle and things are not really looking good for the man who erroneously holds that he can spin the presidential couple around his finger.

According to a disgruntled source close to the arrogant minister of higher education, the man is no longer at ease. He has already briefed his entourage on what to say if questioned and this situation is already consuming him.

“The professor has already briefed his collaborators in crime on what to say. All of them are losing sleep and are looking for ways to demonstrate that the minister bought the drinks out of pocket, but the government’s records are telling a different tale” the source said.

“However, he does not understand that there are two issues involved. The video does not only show that the minister is wasteful, it also demonstrates that he is not discreet. Mr. Biya hates it when his collaborators get caught in situations which portray his government as being wasteful and arrogant. The negative optics are killing the president and Fame Ndongo is regretting that moment of indiscretion,” the source added.

Mr. Ndongo might have issued his motion of support but it is not clear if it will spare him the agony he is putting himself through.

Before the investigation gets concluded, Fame Ndongo would have become a shadow of his former self. He is losing sleep and given that Biya likes holding his cards so close to his chest, the learned professor might end up with a stroke before the findings of the enquiry are released.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai