Monthly Archives: November 2019

30, November 2019

More Deaths Feared From Cholera in Southern Cameroons ⁰

Cameroonian health and emergency personnel are working to stem a cholera outbreak that has killed at least a dozen people and sickened at least 100 others in the Bakassi Peninsula that shares a maritime boundary with Nigeria.

It is feared the outbreak will claim more lives in the coastal area, which lacks health infrastructure.

Emergency medical workers, together with some civilians, are working to improve hygiene and sanitation by clearing dirt and debris from water beneath houses on the shores in the area. Among them is 31-year-old Cameroonian fisherman Lucas Emimo, who says he lost his younger sister to cholera. Emimo says he has joined the humanitarian workers because he fears many more people may die from the infectious disease that causes severe watery diarrhea, leading to dehydration and even death if untreated.

Dirty water flows underneath houses in Idabato, Cameroon, Nov. 28, 2019. (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA) — Dirty water flows underneath houses in Idabato, Cameroon, Nov. 28, 2019.

“We lack toilets, potable water,” Emimo said. “There is no hospital. People defecate beside the sea, under the houses, everywhere and so it makes the place not good to stay.”

Dr. Ebongo Zakius Nandji, the area’s top health official, says humanitarian workers were deployed when news broke that people were dying and some were being rushed to hospitals. He says there is no doubt cholera is to blame.

“Upon the reception of a distress signal from our team in the Bakassi health district, we came down to [the city of] Idabato, myself and my entire emergency response team,” Nandji said. “The situation on the ground really sends a pointer to the fact that we are in an outbreak of cholera.”

Nandji said six people had been reported dead and hundreds of suspected cholera sufferers were still in villages around Idabato. Civilians said they had buried six others before the medical team’s arrival. The actual death toll could be higher, because many live in remote locations, complicating efforts to get accurate health data.

Nandji urged people to be vigilant and report any cholera symptoms.

Hospitals underused

But the government says only 20 percent of the population visits hospitals. Most of them prefer traditional African medicine. Some complain that the only government hospital in Idabato is understaffed and lacks medication.

Roland Ewane, a top Cameroonian official in Idabato, says Nigerians living in the region prefer to return to their country for health care. However, making the journey reduces chances of survival for cholera patients.

A humanitarian worker disinfects homes in Idabato, Cameroon, Nov. 28, 2019. (Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA) — A humanitarian worker disinfects homes in Idabato, Cameroon, Nov. 28, 2019.

“We have a population of about 40,000,” Ewane said. “They are mostly Nigerians. We have been carrying out sensitization campaigns [educating the population] on the necessity of using or the importance of using government services. One of them is the hospital. They do not come to the hospital. It is a big cry [to use hospitals].”

The Bakassi Peninsula is by the sea, but potable water is hard to find. Few have toilets and the local hospital struggles to handle epidemics.

Nigeria ceded full control of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon in 2013, in keeping with a 2002 International Court of Justice ruling. Some 300,000 Nigerians live on the peninsula — approximately 90 percent of its population. The territory is rich in hydrocarbons and fisheries, but lacks basic social services.

Most health workers trained by Nigeria to serve in the area returned to their country when Cameroon did not continue paying their salaries. Some also fled attacks by separatists fighting for the independence of Cameroon’s English-speaking regions from the French-speaking majority. Cameroon has faced difficulties replacing departed medical staff.

Source: VOA

30, November 2019

Yaounde: Diplomats urge Biya to step down ⁰

Cameroon Intelligence Report has learnt that Moussa Faki Mahamat of the African Union, Patricia Scotland of the Commonwealth and Louise Mushikiwabo of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie met President Paul Biya privately in Yaoundé and insisted that the French Cameroun dictator should give up power.

Our chief intelligence officer in Yaoundé said the meeting, which involved representatives of the US and French embassies in Yaoundé, was held at an undisclosed location. We understand that the diplomats from the US side delivered a clear and firm message that the only way to free La Republique du Cameroun from a civil war was for the 86 year old Biya to step down.

The secret meeting occurred after a televised one with Prime Minister Dion Ngute in which French Cameroun state media, CRTV reported that Biya was still in the good books of the West and his troops were winning the Ambazonia Restoration Forces for control of the oil rich Southern Cameroons.

The Southern Cameroons Interim Government announced last week the creation of the Bank of Ambazonia which was followed with the appointment of the governor of the bank by Vice President Dabney Yerima in what would be a major boost to the Southern Cameroons campaign for total and complete independence.

The French Cameroun Minister-Secretary General at the presidency of the Republic, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh was heard murmuring privately after the meeting that the Biya regime welcomed discussions but only without preconditions.

The French Cameroun military has changed tactics several times in the back-and-forth fighting in Southern Cameroons since the Ambazonia uprising began nearly four years ago.

State TV, in a bid to counter claims that the Biya regime was crumbling, has been showing images of ordinary life in Southern Cameroons with students reportedly back to school. Biya is refusing to step down despite pressure from the United States and the European Union.

We gathered that French Cameroun political elites are now calling their pro Yaoundé Southern Cameroons counterparts as traitors. Eneo, the sole electricity provider has not been able to pay salaries for the last three months.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

30, November 2019

France reviews counter-terrorism strategy in Sahel ⁰

French President Emmanuel Macron told his country military leaders to consider all options as it seeks to review its operations against Islamist militants in West Africa.

Macron’s first public remarks since 13 French soldiers died during a combat mission in Mali included an earnest plea for his international allies to do more.

France, a former colonial power, is the only Western country with a significant military presence waging counter-insurgency operations in Mali and the wider Sahel region south of the Sahara desert.

What happened?

The 13 French soldiers were killed in Mali on Monday when two helicopters collided in the dark after being called in to provide air support during a combat mission to track down a band of Islamic State fighters.

Islamic State said on Thursday that its West African branch had caused the collision, but it did not provide any evidence for the claim.

The French government has faced criticism at home that its troops are bogged down, while critical voices in the region have increasingly scorned Paris for failing to restore stability and anti-French sentiment has grown.

Thirty eight French troops have been killed in the West African Sahel since France sent troops to Mali in 2013.

Macron’s reaction

Macron invited those seeking to understand the cost of France’s mission in the Sahel should witness a ceremony to honour the dead soldiers. The country will be mourning its heaviest single loss of troops for nearly four decades.

“France is acting in the Sahel on everyone’s behalf,” an emotional Macron told a news conference with NATO General-Secretary Jens Stoltenberg.

“Our mission there is important. Nevertheless, the situation we face compels me today to examine all our strategic options.”

France’s options

Macron said he had told his government and top military leaders to look hard at France’s operations in the region, adding, “I told them all options are open”.

He gave no indication what those options were. However, French officials have ruled out withdrawing its 4,500-strong force from the region, fearing this could lead to even more chaos.

As France mourns the dead commandos, Macron wants to incorporate more European allies into operations and to ensure local troops are better trained and equipped.

French officials have also bemoaned the fact peace accords agreed in Mali in 2015 have still not been implemented and that the political will power to implement them is missing.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told lawmakers there was a need for more political action in Mali and a common desire to defeat terrorism, adding that was also the case for neighbouring Burkina Faso.

An unwinnable war?

Despite French troops, 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Mali and thousands of pan-regional forces, Islamist militants have strengthened their foothold across the arid Sahel region, making large swathes of territory ungovernable and stoking ethnic violence, especially in Mali and Burkina Faso.

On Wednesday, France’s top general acknowledged France would never achieve a total victory over al Qaeda- and Islamic State-affiliated militants.

Macron’s government denies it is bogged down in an intractable conflict. But Monday’s deaths have provoked renewed public comparisons with the United States’ drawn-out military involvement in Afghanistan.

France has complained to European allies that it is bearing the brunt of a counter-terrorism operation that benefits all Europe. It hopes to persuade them quickly to send special forces to the region to back up local troops, Le Drian said.

REUTERS

30, November 2019

Gabon’s Operation Mamba: an anti-corruption drive or political witch-hunt? ⁰

Authorities in Gabon this week arrested eight people who are suspected of theft and money-laundering in what is seen as follow-up to Operation Mamba, an anti-corruption campaign launched in 2017 by President Ali Bongo, who has been battling serious illness.

The revived anti-graft drive has seen a string of top-level arrests in the central African country, as accusations that millions of euros have disappeared from state coffers swirl around top officials.

“Eight people have been placed in preventive detention,” Gabon’s prosecutor Andre Patrick Roponat said on Thursday, adding that they were accused of “siphoning off public funds and money-laundering.”

The group appeared before a judge on Wednesday along with eight others who were released on bail, Roponat said.

Pro-government newspaper L’Union reported this week that more than 85 billion CFA francs ($142 million) have “evaporated” over the past two years from the funds of the Gabon Oil Company.

60-year-old Bongo said last month he was “fiercely determined” to push ahead with the campaign against graft.

Political witch-hunt?

One high-profile political figure embroiled in the affair is Brice Laccruche Alihanga, Bongo’s former cabinet director who took the lead and spoke for the president after he suffered a stroke in 2018.

Laccuruche had held his cabinet post for more than two years but was dismissed on November 7, at the start of a wave of arrests.

He has announced on social media that he will undertake a new mission for “the president and for Gabon”.

Earlier this week, lawyers told AFP that presidential spokesman Ike Ngouoni and a dozen others were arrested and questioned over their ties to Alihanga.

The lawyers also insist that “there is a political vendetta” in the current process, a claim the country’s Prime Minister refutes.

During his months-long absence abroad for treatment, speculation over Bongo’s fitness surged and the army quashed a brief attempted coup.

Bongo has ruled Gabon since 2009, following the death of his father Omar Bongo, who was in power from 1967.

AFP

30, November 2019

Call for support for Ambazonian prisoners of conscience on Prisoners for Peace Day ⁰

War Resisters’ International has recently been joined by new affiliates. One of the new affiliates of our expanding network is the Ambazonian Prisoners of Conscience Support Network (APOCS Net). On this Prisoners for Peace Day, we feature APOCS Net’s work and encourage our followers to write to Ambazonian prisoners of conscience, alongside other prisoners for peace and conscience.

Below is a call for support from APOCS Net explaining their work and encouraging everyone to stand in solidarity with, and write to, Ambazonian prisoners of conscience.

The Ambazonian Prisoners of Conscience Support Network

The Ambazonian Prisoners of Conscience Support Network (APOCS Net) was started in January 2018 by Ambazonian diaspora organizers and allies in South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States who wanted to help Ambazonians who had been rounded up and imprisoned in secret detention centers of the French Neocolonial regime in Cameroon.

The current generation of Ambazonian Prisoners of Conscience refers to people imprisoned for the expression of their conscientiously held belief that the fundamental human rights of the people of Ambazonia, formerly the United Nations Trust Territory of Southern Cameroons under United Kingdom administration, needs to be respected by all — including the French neo-colonial regime in Cameroon and its allies. The conflict between Ambazonia and Cameroon, which is the basis for the imprisonment of close to 3,000 Ambazonian political prisoners, has it roots in the military occupation of Ambazonia by Cameroon following an ill-fated UN plebiscite on a confederation between the two countries in 1961.

Six decades of disciplined protest have been based on the principles of nonviolence and the slogan “the force of argument, not the argument of force.” The recorded history of repression against indigenous Ambazonians, however, goes as far back as 1891 during the period of German colonization. Legendary leader Mountain King Kuva Likenye was deported from Buea to Wonya Mokumba because of his anti-colonial stance, where he fell ill and died soon after.

The number of Ambazonian political prisoners has skyrocketed since fall 2016, following nationwide protests to defend the Ambazonian common law–based judicial system from the Cameroonian regime’s attempt to replace it with what amounts to a colonial court system.

Leaders from all corners of Ambazonian civil society have been rounded up in the dragnet that followed this nonviolent uprising — teachers and teachers union leaders (including Vice Principal Penn Terrence and Mr. Wilfred Tassang, organizer with the Ambazonian Teachers’ Union, CAPTAC), lawyers and legal workers union leaders (including Barrister Shufai Berinyuy and Barrister Eyambe Elias, both organizers with the Ambazonia Legal Workers Union), journalists and press union leaders (including Mancho Bibixy, Tsi Conrad, Awah Paul and Felix Ngalim), student union leaders, doctors, and members of the traditional rulers association.

The most high-profile prisoner is Sisiku AyukTabe Julius, an open source tech developer known for his nonviolent leadership and philanthropic work, who in January 2018 was arrested along with his aides while meeting at the Nera Hotel in Nigeria, and forcibly returned to Cameroon in violation of the international legal principle of nonrefoulement.

In March 2019, the Federal High Court of Nigeria ruled that the abduction and deportation of these “Nera 10” and other prisoners by Nigerian authorities was illegal within Nigeria, and a violation of international law, and that they should be immediately released and returned to Nigeria. Yet they are still being imprisoned by the Cameroon regime.

These prisoners of conscience continue to provide leadership from behind bars, and APOCS Net works to support their physical and emotional well-being, to gather and disseminate information that is relevant to their struggle, and to organize solidarity actions in consultation with their needs and campaigns. We also work to support imprisoned human rights defenders in Cameroon, such as the Kamto 203 and l’Association pour la Défense des Droits des Etudiants au Cameroun (ADDEC), as well as other political prisoners in the rest of the Francafrique controlled territories. APOCS Net actively seeks to contribute to the building of a global network in solidarity with imprisoned human rights defenders all over the world.

Below is information on how you can write to the Ambazonian prisoners of conscience named in this article. Follow the links to read more.

The Nera 10:

Mr. Julius AyukTabe — American University of Nigeria in Yola, North Eastern Nigeria
Mr. Wilfred Tassang — organizer with the Ambazonia teachers Union, CAPTAC
Professor Augustine Awasum — Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Northern Nigeria
Dr. Cornelius Njikimpi Kwanga — Umaru Musa Yar’adua University in Katsina, Nigeria
Dr. Henry Kimeng — Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria
Dr. Fidelis Ndeh-Che — American University of Nigeria in Yola, North Eastern Nigeria
Dr. Egbe Ogork — Associate Professor, Bayero University in Kano
Barrister Shufai Berinyuy — Organizer with the Ambazonia Legal workers Union
Barrister Eyambe Elias — Organizer with the Ambazonia Legal workers Union
Dr. Nfor Ngalla Nfor — Ambazonia Civil Society leader

Write to the Nera 10 prisoners at the following address:

Prison Principal Kondengui Yaoundé

B. P 100, YAOUNDÉ

Cameroon

NOTE: write to each prisoner individually, using their individual names; do not use the term Nera 10!

Penn Terrence: https://ambazoniapocs.net/node/11
Mancho Bibixy, Tsi Conrad and others: https://ambazoniapocs.net/node/8

Write to Penn, Mancho and Tsi at:

Prison Centrale de Yaoundé

B. P 100, YAOUNDÉ

Cameroon

30, November 2019

Trump pulling Cameroon’s preferential trade status: Are human rights concerns the real reason or just a pretext? ⁰

President Trump has announced his intention to declare Cameroon ineligible for a trade program that allows African countries to sell goods to the United States on a duty-free basis. The reason? The Oct. 31 White House statement cited “persistent human rights violations being committed by Cameroonian security forces” as justification.

Trump’s actions might be a win for human rights activists, who have called for increased international pressure to end abuses in Cameroon. However, other U.S. interests might be driving Trump’s decision. Here’s what you need to know.

This U.S. trade program has a human rights linkage

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) is a U.S. trade program created in 2000 for up to 49 potentially eligible countries in Africa. AGOA status allows eligible countries to export 1,800 types of products to the United States without the purchasers on the U.S. side having to pay import duties.

In exchange for duty-free access under AGOA, countries must have or be moving toward free-market economies, the rule of law and labor protections. AGOA also requires that countries not pursue “activities that undermine United States national security or foreign policy interests” or commit “gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”

Robust human rights conditions are a critical feature of AGOA. The U.S. president may grant a country AGOA beneficiary status, subject to review and the possibility of termination for violations.

Does linking trade to human rights work?

Some scholars argue that linking trade to human rights performance could improve human rights. The threat of withdrawing trade benefits might deter governments from violating the human rights of their citizens. But this perspective does not take into account other U.S. interests that may influence decisions on AGOA eligibility and trade benefits.

New Afrobarometer data shows Africans want elections — especially if they bring change at the top

In our research on AGOA, Eric Reinhardt and I find that a country in which the United States has strong trade, investment and security interests is less likely to experience AGOA termination. If a country is highly nondemocratic or has experienced a successful coup d’etat, the United States is more likely to end its AGOA beneficiary status. However, the country’s human rights record has a less consistent and weaker effect on its AGOA status.

In fact, the decision to withdraw a country’s AGOA privileges appears to have little to do with even the most extreme human rights violations. Here’s what that means: Governments with a poor or worsening human rights record may be under-sanctioned. But countries with improving or good records may be over-sanctioned, depending on their relative importance to U.S. trade, investment and security interests.

Here’s how this played out in Kenya

Kenya’s experience in 2007 and 2008 illustrates this phenomenon. The U.S. government considered terminating Kenya’s status following a massive wave of post-election violence, which left about 1,200 dead and 600,000 displaced. U.S. officials knew that Kenya’s security forces had committed abuses, including extrajudicial killings and the torture and beatings of detainees.

But the United States decided not to terminate Kenya’s AGOA status. Why? Kenya was a leading participant in the global coalition against terrorism. In addition, business associations lobbied the U.S. trade representative’s office to retain Kenya’s AGOA eligibility to facilitate its members’ profitable AGOA apparel trade.

Another example occurred in 2018, when Trump suspended Rwanda’s duty-free access to the United States. He did so not because of Rwandan human rights violations but because the Rwandan government had banned the import of used clothing from U.S. firms.

Cameroon saw election violence — a year ago

Trump’s termination of Cameroon’s AGOA status comes one year after President Paul Biya won a seventh term in office. Biya, who has ruled Cameroon since 1982, won about 71 percent of the votes. But election violence and allegations of fraud and intimidation marred this election. Many Cameroonians were frightened to vote, because of insecurity that began in 2016, when security forces repressed largely peaceful demonstrations from the country’s Anglophone minority who demanded greater autonomy.

Cameroon has an election Sunday — and everyone already knows the winner

The violence was horrific. Government security forces used live ammunition against protesters and bystanders, killing at least a dozen people and injuring many others. The government detained and tortured others.

The conflict escalated as separatist leaders declared independence, establishing an aspirational country called Ambazonia in western Cameroon. According to the International Crisis Group, the conflict between government security forces and separatists has left 1,850 dead, displaced 530,000 and led tens of thousands to seek refuge abroad. Numerous schools closed, and more than 170 villages were destroyed. The local economy, accounting for one-fifth of Cameroon’s GDP, has been devastated.

The abuses haven’t stopped — but why is the Trump administration acting now? Cameroon recently released several political prisoners, including a key opposition leader, Maurice Kamto, and adopted a special status for Anglophone regions, a concession meant to reinforce the regions’ autonomy.

Despite the country’s overall human rights record, the United States previously considered Cameroon a key U.S. security partner in the fight against extremist groups such as Boko Haram, which is active in northern Cameroon. The government of Cameroon promoted U.S. national security interests, which insulated it from human rights sanctions.

That key security position changed nine months ago when the United States announced it would no longer provide military aid to Cameroon.

Human rights abuses by Cameroonian security forces certainly appear to violate the eligibility requirements of AGOA. However, terminating Cameroon’s status is more likely a reflection of a shift in U.S. interests in the region than it is a signal of Trump’s commitment to improving human rights.

Culled from The Washington Post

29, November 2019

Indomitable Lions: Aboubakar scores brace in first Porto start since September 2018 ⁰

The Cameroon striker heralded his return to the Dragons’ starting XI with two second-half goals on Thursday

Vincent Aboubakar scored a brace in his first start of the season to help Porto secure a 2-1 comeback win over Young Boys in their Europa League game.

Aboubakar last started a game for the Portuguese giants in September 2018 against Tondela, in a league fixture where he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament which eventually ruled him out of the entire 2018-19 season.

On Thursday, Porto found themselves behind in Bern as early as in the sixth minute but the 27-year-old’s partnership with Mali’s Moussa Marega saved them from defeat.

Marega provided the assists as Aboubakar found the back of the net in the 75th and 79th minutes.

The Cameroonian’s brilliance in front of goal sealed Porto’s second win in Group G as they moved to second spot with seven points after five games.

Aboubakar will be aiming to maintain his goalscoring form when the Dragons host Pacos Ferreira on Monday. Their final Europa League group game is against Feyenoord on December 12.

Source: Goal.com

29, November 2019

Biya regime working on legislation to end child marriage ⁰

Cameroon’s Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and the Family on Thursday said it is working on a piece of legislation to end child marriage in the country.

Officials said the draft bill will be presented to Parliament for approval early next week.

“In Cameroon more than 62 percent of women have gone into child marriages. And we think that it is important to have a legal framework which can help us put an end to this phenomenon which is devastating and preventing the girl child from going to school and failing to fulfill her potentials,” Justine Che, executive director of Women in Alternative Action, a civil society organization working on the proposal in collaboration with the ministry told reporters in the capital, Yaounde.

Cameroon’s Minister of Women Empowerment and the Family Marie-Therese Abena Ondoa said with the law, there will be fewer girls dropping out of school and fewer girls forced to marry at an early age.

“It will ensure the development of girls in all aspects and enhance a just society where boys and girls excel equally,” Ondoa said.

The initiative falls within the framework of the global action to eliminate child marriage and female genital mutilation, according to officials.

Child and forced marriages remain a major concern in Cameroon and the situation is more preoccupying in the Far North Region where about 80 percent of women marry prematurely, according government statistics.

Source: Xinhuanet

29, November 2019

Nigeria Court Declares Deportation Of Southern Cameroon Front line Leader Unconstitutional ⁰

The Federal High Court, Abuja, on Thursday declared the arrest and deportation of Dr Egbe Ogork, one of the separatist leaders of Southern Cameroon, unlawful and unconstitutional.

The trial judge, Justice A.R Mohammed, who delivered the judgment, also awarded N5m damages in favour of the applicant against the respondents for the unlawful act.

The court held that the arrest, detention and deportation of the applicant was null and void and unconstitutional.

Ogork was arrested alongside other persons, who were subsequently rounded up and deported to Cameroon on January 26, 2018 without an order of court.

Ogork, who is also a professor of Engineering at the Bayero University Kano, filed the suit through his lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN).

Source: Sahara Reporters

29, November 2019

Prosecutor asks French court to clear cardinal over sex abuse cover-up ⁰

A French prosecutor asked an appeals court on Friday to quash Cardinal Philippe Barbarin’s conviction for failing to report sex abuse by a priest, eight months after a verdict that rocked the French Catholic Church.

Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon, was given a six-month suspended jail sentence in March for failing to report allegations that a priest in his diocese abused dozens of boy scouts in the Lyon area in the 1980s and 1990s.

Barbarin, 69, has denied the charges, but tended his resignation to Pope Francis, which the pontiff rejected pending the outcome of his appeal.

The cardinal, who has nonetheless stepped back from his duties, is the most senior French cleric to be caught up in a global clerical paedophilia scandal, which has seen clergy members hauled before courts from Argentina to Australia.

Public prosecutor Joel Sollier warned against a “symbolic” conviction, saying the cardinal could not be held accountable for the “mistakes” of the Catholic Church, which was slow to admit to the long-running cover-up of abuse allegations.

After the hearing, Barbarin said he was “relieved” by the prosecution’s recommendations.

“I put myself at the mercy of the court,” he said.

At his initial trial the prosecution had also called for him to be cleared of the charges, but the court still convicted him.

The judges on that occasion found him guilty of twice failing to report Bernard Preynat to the police, first in 2010 when the priest admitted to the cardinal that he had a history of abuse, and again in 2014, when one of Preynat’s alleged victims informed Barbarin about the abuse he suffered.

But Sollier argued that it was “difficult to consider that Cardinal Barbarin had the desire to obstruct justice or the awareness of doing so.”

– ‘Preserve’ the Catholic Church –

Barbarin, a deeply conservative priest who took over as archbishop in Lyon in 2002, has long been accused by victims’ groups in Lyon of turning a blind eye to the historic child abuse in his diocese which blighted dozens of lives.

Investigators had initially dropped the case against him in 2016 after concluding that the allegations were either too old or impossible to prove.

But a group of victims succeeded in having the probe reopened, which led to Barbarin being ordered to stand trial.

He insisted at the trial earlier this year that he had “never tried to hide, let alone cover up, these horrible facts”.

But the court ruled that he chose not to tell the authorities of the abuse allegations “in order to preserve the institution to which he belongs”.

Preynat, who was defrocked in July, is himself set to go on trial in January.

Two other senior French religious figures have been convicted of failing to report child abuse in the past: the archbishop of Bayeux-Lisieux, Pierre Rican, in 2001, and the former bishop of Orleans, Andre Fort, last year.

The court said Friday that it would issue its ruling on January 30.

Source: AFP