20, May 2020
Yaounde: Biya delivers first coronavirus address 0
Cameroon’s 87-year-old President Paul Biya has made a televised address to his people ending more than two months of silence as the central African nation dealt with a burgeoning coronavirus crisis.
Biya’s long silence was for supporters a sign of gravitas but for critics one of failure. “Like most countries in the world Cameroon is suffering from COVID-19,” Biya said Tuesday night on state channel CRTV.
“The number of people infected rises day after day, bringing proof that the fight against the pandemic is complex and difficult.”
Biya urged people to respect “measures taken by the government, such as the obligatory wearing of masks”. He also asked them “not to give in to panic and not to believe false information put out on social networks.”
He last spoke to the nation on March 5, although Cameroon had counted by Monday 3,500 cases including 140 deaths, and has been hit harder by the virus than most sub-Saharan African countries.
Speculation about his death even circulated on the internet in late April and the government was moved to put out a denial. In his 37 years in power, Cameroonians have become accustomed to Biya’s long absences, mainly because of poor health.
But his silence over the pandemic raised numerous questions for a leader who has overseen many crises since he took power in 1982.
He posed for the cameras after talks with the US ambassador on March 11 and again after meeting the French envoy. His subsequent absence from public view saw the opposition question his role.
Main opposition leader Maurice Kamto, the runner-up to Biya in 2018 elections, said he had launched proceedings for the Constitutional Council to declare the presidency vacant.
Six opposition activists were arrested last week in Cameroon for “illegally” distributing face masks and disinfectant gel. All are supporters of Kamto whose initiative to collect funds to fight the virus has been banned by government. They were released after five days.
Biya reappeared finally on the eve of national day. “Most of you have fully understood that faced with the silent danger that COVID-19 represents it was time to set aside political quarrels and form a united front,” he said.
Source: AFP
20, May 2020
Southern Cameroons: Concerns increase over Barrister Shufai’s health 0
OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN OF THE MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION COMMITTEE FOR THE DEFENSE TEAM OF SISIKU AYUK TABE & THE REST OF SOUTHERN CAMEROONIANS IN DETENTION
PRESS RELEASE
We are reaching out this May 20th 2020, to the entire defense team of Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and the rest of southern Cameroonian detainees consequential to the ongoing struggle for the restoration of the statehood of the former British Trust Territory now popularly (the Anglophone Struggle) , National and International Press, Foreign Embassies and International Organizations accredited to Yaoundé, local and International Human Rights organizations, Minister of State Minister of Justice and keeper of the seals, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Justice in charge of Penitentiary Administration.
That on the night of May 19th, 2020, the superintendent of Prison Principale Kondengui Yaoundé ordered four prison guards to chain the two hands of our client and colleague Shu Fai Blaise Esq to his sick bed at Yaoundé Military Hospital throughout the night. We received a late night distress call about the brutal act from one of his family members who was chased out shabbily amid dramatic commotion and warned not to approach the ward as they overpowered the patient to chain his two hands to his sick bed with a drip on one of them.
At about 08:30 this May 20th, 2020 some counsel visited Shu Fai Esq to gauge the veracity of the news and effectively we met Shu Fai Esq in a gloomy state as he narrates that he had one the longest painful nights in his lifetime because he slept in chains. That he struggled not to be chained until the drip was dripping out of his veins but the prison guards went ahead to subdue him in chains.
Shu Fai Blaise Esqwas critically sick for ten days in prison and was deprived of adequate medical attention until when he collapsed under the watchful eyes of the superintendent of prison Principale Kondengui Yaoundé before being rushed to the Military Hospital in the early hours of May, 16th, 2020.
The superintendent has visited him twice at the Military Hospital and disturbingly, during his visits, he has been pressing hard that Shu Fai Blaise Esq should be discharged back to prison whereas the results of the clinical tests done on him at the Military Hospital are pending in laboratories. After the prison guards threw out his family members last evening, the superintendent issued firm instructions that his lawyers should not be allowed access to him. At the time we arrived the Military Hospital today, the chains were removed.
Done in Buea
This May 20th, 2020 Communication and Media Chairman
For the defense team