The suspension of a university professor’s classes in Cameroon has raised fears that the government wants to silence those who dare raise the subject of the country’s Anglophone crisis.

Since late 2016, Anglophone regions of Cameroon have been gripped in violence between government forces and armed groups seeking a separate state. The crisis has claimed thousands of lives.

The government has repeatedly denied that its security forces have committed abuses during the crisis, but now it seems to be taking matters even further.

On April 20, the minister of higher education sent a letter to Buea University alleging that law professor Felix Agbor Nkongho, also known as Agbor-Balla, breached “the university’s code of ethics and conduct” and called on the head of the university to take measures. Agbor-Balla’s classes were then suspended.

Agbor-Balla told Human Rights Watch that he believes the suspension of his classes was because of an assignment in which he asked students to explore the reasons behind the Anglophone crisis. He added that it was only meant to get the law students to think critically and put the crisis into a legal context.

“I don’t discuss politics in the classroom,” he said.

A Ministry of Higher Education representative told Radio France International that Agbor-Balla had “turned a classroom into a political space.”

It is not the first time teachers got into trouble for discussing current events in Cameroon. On September 13, 2019, a teacher at the high school in Avebe-Esse, a village in the South region, was arrested after mentioning in class that the government was considering allowing jailed opposition leader Maurice Kamto to participate in a national dialogue. The teacher was released five days later.

Agbor-Balla had been arrested in January 2017 for leading peaceful protests in Buea along with other Anglophone activists. Charged by a military court under the anti-terrorism law, he was eventually released in August 2017 and all charges were dropped.

Since then, he has advocated for upholding human rights during the crisis, denouncing abuses by both the military and the armed separatists.

University students should be encouraged to debate the most pressing issues of the day. The suspension of Agbor-Balla’s courses shows the government wants to stifle that debate.

Culled from Human Rights Watch

Iranian authorities have released French academic Roland Marchal, who has been imprisoned in Iran since June 2019, the French presidency announced in a statement on Saturday.

Roland, a specialist of sub-Saharan conflicts, is due to arrive in France around midday on Saturday, the statement said.

French President Emmanuel Macron urged the Iranian authorities to also release French citizen Fariba Adelkhah, who is still imprisoned, the presidency added.

France has for months demanded that Iran release the two researchers, who both went on trial in early March.

Adelkhah is a citizen of both Iran and France, but Tehran does not recognise dual nationality.

The two academics faced charges of “propaganda against the system” and “colluding to commit acts against national security”, according to their lawyer Said Dehghan.

Their Paris-based support group and the French foreign ministry have sounded the alarm over the health of both detainees — Adelkhah went on hunger strike for 49 days and Marchal’s health was said to be deteriorating.

The support group has repeatedly claimed that the two are innocent of the charges they face.

Adding to concerns for the welfare of the prisoners, Iran has been hard hit by the novel coronavirus pandemic, behind only Italy and China in number of fatalities.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)

On January 30, armed separatists kidnapped Marie (not her real name), a 19-year-old secondary school student, in Buea, in Cameroon’s Anglophone South-West region. Three days later, they chopped her finger off with a machete.

The reason? Marie wanted to go to school.

Since 2017, armed separatist groups have enforced a boycott of education in the country’s two English-speaking regions, as part of a perverse attempt to pressure the government to get greater political recognition.

They’ve burned school buildings and kidnapped and assaulted students and teachers for not complying with their demands to keep schools shut. They have used schools as bases, torturing and holding people hostage in and near them.

“They punished me because they found schoolbooks in my bag,” said Marie. “They wanted to cut a finger of my right hand to prevent me from writing again. I begged them [not to], and then they chopped the forefinger of my left hand.”

Marie said the separatists also maimed a 19-year-old man who was held with her and also accused of attending school. Both students were released on February 3, after a ransom payment. They have received medical treatment but have not yet returned to school.

Separatists’ attacks on schools, students, and teachers in the Anglophone regions have had a devastating impact on education. According to United Nations agencies, nearly 600,000 children have been prevented from going to school since late 2016, and only 19 percent of primary and secondary schools are open across the North-West and South-West regions. Government forces have been implicated in one arson attack at a school, according to open source investigators.

In September 2018, Cameroon announced its endorsement of the Safe Schools Declaration, one of 28 African Union members to join this international political commitment to protect education during armed conflict. Clearly, far more needs to be done by the government to ensure children can return to school safely and to promote alternative forms of education, including teaching by radio, the internet, or television, for those students who cannot yet return.

In their brutal campaign, separatists are using education as a weapon for political gains and are robbing an entire generation of children of their fundamental right to education. Separatist leaders should immediately direct their fighters and followers to stop interfering with children’s education.

Culled from Human Rights Watch

When an Amnesty International delegation visited Cameroon in August 2010, they identified that circumstances at prisons were appalling. At New Bell prison where Cameroonian creator Bertrand Zepherin Teyou was held, the scenario was not distinct. Officially intended to accommodate 700 persons, the New Bell prison in Douala experienced more than 2,453 detainees in August

2010.

“The detainees are in an overcrowded and everyday living-threatening setting – some have irons on their feet – and there is a dire absence of satisfactory foodstuff and professional medical treatment,” Tawanda Hondora, deputy director of the Africa plan at Amnesty Worldwide, claimed at the time.

“The guards are not adequately qualified and are ill-outfitted to deal with this kind of a significant quantity of detainees, a problem which often gives increase to unrest and attempted escape, some of which are lethal,” Hondora included.

For months, Teyou had to survive within the 4 walls of New Bell prison, even suffering from heavy bleeding triggered by acute hemorrhoids, a ailment built even worse by his weak prison eating plan.

And this was all simply because he could not fork out the court good just after he was arrested for creating a guide about the country’s very first lady.

Teyou was arrested in a lodge in November 2010 though making an attempt to launch a e-book he experienced prepared about Chantal Biya, the spouse of Cameroon’s President Paul Biya.

Teyou experienced hired a room at the Somatel Lodge for the signing of his e book, La Belle de la République bananière: Chantal Biya, de la rue au palais (The Banana Republic’s Natural beauty: Chantal Biya, from the street to the palace).

The ebook is about Chantal’s modest beginnings to her increase as Cameroon’s first lady. But just before the guide was about to be launched in the existence of the media, management of the resort reported they would no lengthier allow for him to use the venue.

Protection forces quickly arrived, arrested him and whisked him to a police station in Douala. There, he was detained and charged with contempt of a persona (outrage à personnalité) and illegal assembly (manifestation illégale).

On November 10, 2010, Teyou was attempted by the Superior Courtroom (Tribunal de première instance) in Douala, which uncovered him responsible of the costs.

He was sentenced to a fine of two,030,150 CFA francs (4,425 US pounds) or two years’ imprisonment if he was unable to pay the good. Not in a position to fork out the great, he had to keep on being in prison.

Then his wellbeing circumstances deteriorated because of to the lifetime-threatening ailments at the jail. Alongside the way, he could only receive professional medical treatment outdoors, only when and if he could find the money for it.

In the meantime, human legal rights companies these as Amnesty Worldwide and Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN had begun demanding his release.

Amnesty International argued that the charges against him “are unfounded at best and he really should be launched immediately and unconditionally.”

According to Articles or blog posts 152 to 156 of the Cameroonian Penal code, the offense of contempt is only applicable to senior govt and legislative officials, as very well as foreign dignitaries. It does not mention their spouses or users of their households, a report by africultures claimed in April 2011.

It extra that Teyou was not sued by the first girl, nor was she a witness in the circumstance immediately after he was arrested, detained and through his demo.

His charge of unlawful assembly was also stunning for quite a few, taking into consideration the Cameroonian creator experienced notified authorities of the start ahead of time.

About two months in prison, on February 15, 2011, Teyou went on a hunger strike to protest the ailments at the prison but his spouse and children persuaded him to back down due to his health and fitness which continued to deteriorate.

The good news is, that same 12 months, on May two, Teyou was unveiled when the London chapter of Global PEN agreed to spend his high-quality and to also go for health-related procedure.

Rejoining his family members and mates, it was later on documented that his overall health experienced improved. The chair of African literature at the University of Bayreuth also available to shell out the charges for his e book to be reprinted in Germany.

At the time of his arrest, Amnesty Global mentioned it considered Teyou was held as a prisoner of conscience, “detained entirely for the tranquil exercising of his ideal to freedom of expression and affiliation.”

In an interview in March 2011, Teyou disclosed his motives for producing his e book. “We are entitled to increase in opposition to the injustice that is crippling our region. We can’t enable evil go unquestioned… This reserve is the expression of my dissatisfaction with what is going on in Cameroon, especially the macabre process that gives Chantal Biya the leeway to treat people today about her with serious cruelty.”

Paul Biya

Chantal’s husband, 87-12 months-outdated Biya, is just one of Africa’s longest-serving presidents who gained one more seven-calendar year expression in 2018. Right after serving for 36 a long time, he is not ready to move down even nevertheless the nation continues to tumble apart.

Latest situations in the region comprise all the telltale indications of a regime in decline and a failing setting.

For a prolonged time, Biya has relied on the common dictatorial techniques to maintain his stranglehold on the place ethnic divisions, a brutal military crackdown on dissenters, arrest and imprisonment of opposition leaders, preserving a shut school of cronies, most of whom are from his area of origin and have remained blind loyalists. These that have proven indicators of wavering have been swiftly thrown in prison.

Source: gotech daily.com

Strange but true. That’s Cameroon for you. Pegue Manga reported in a release that the Registrar of the Cameroon General Certificate of Education, GCE Board, Dr. Omer Weyi Yembe, September 13, 2005, issued a release cancelling the 2005 Ordinary Level results of Government Secondary School, GSS, Tabenken in Donga and Mantung Division for copy work and cheating.

That year James Wenong wrote “The perpetrators are very lucky to be in Cameroon. In Developed Countries, they will all be axed from their jobs, sent to jail and be banned for life. In Cameroon, they keep their jobs and can return after a three-year probation. That is a joke. Lucky criminals”.

The Yembe-signed release also banned some nine teachers of GSS Tabenken who were said to have helped the students to cheat, from taking part in any aspect of examinations organised by the GCE Board for a period of three years.

They included among others a certain Oliver Tarlishi – Mathematics Teacher of GSS Tabenken. (Details can be obtained from Searches related to Tarlishi and GCE examination fraud in Cameroon.

Subsequently, as if to compensate the said Tarlishi Oliver for his mischief, he was on several occasions and in a row appointed Principal of many secondary schools.

The question here is when Tarlishi Oliver was principal in the series of secondary schools, did he take part in the management of the GCE examinations (the GCE Board during examinations normally appoints Principals of schools to act as Chiefs of Centre).

What role did he play in the GCE examinations when he served as Principal?

Presently Tarlishi Oliver is the Divisional Delegate of Secondary Education in Donga and Mantung Division.

With the current socio-political situation in the North West Region of Cameroon, he is conspicuously absent from his Nkambe office, as he has to proof his allegiance to the ruling CPDM party by running messy and difficult errands for Mr Fuh Calistus Gentry – Secretary of State to the Minister of Mines, Industries and Technological Development (from Misaje Sub Division, Donga and Mantung Division) and Ngala Gerard – the section president of the CPDM in Nkambe in the North West region (from Ntabenken).

He is not a fool! He is playing his last cards while eyeing the post of Regional Delegate for Secondary Education.

It is worthwhile noting that Tarlishi Oliver, while serving as Principal was at the head of a network which collected monies from teachers in exchange for appointments.

The other teachers banned that same year 2005

Francis Tantoh – Physics and Mathematics Teacher,

Emmanuel Bigi Nyabikesa – English Language Teacher,

Oliver Lambip – French Teacher,

Christian Nyon – Senior Discipline Master,

Gabriel Zemkwe – Mathematics Teacher,

Louis Niba Akongnui – French Teacher,

Peter Z. Chungong – Biology Teacher,

Vitalis Abi Takah – Chemistry Teacher.

Cameroon is going down the drain and it must be known that those pushing the country down the bottom of the abyss  also include teachers, many of whom are sucking up to corrupt politicians to earn what they do not deserve.

The citizens of this country must stand up for their country. They must take back their country, if not things will bottom out and that will be very soon.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Cameroon Intelligence Report

In December 2019, the University of Toronto launched a new initiative, the Global Database of Atrocities, to collect and store information on atrocities perpetrated in the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon.

The Anglophone crisis in Cameroon emerged in 2016 but is grounded in long-standing and unresolved issues surrounding political, economic, and social marginalization of the Anglophone minority community. The Anglophone community constitutes of approximately 20% of the country’s population, with the remaining 80% being Francophones. In 2016, Anglophone lawyers and teachers took to the streets in protest against the Government’s appointment of French-language judges and teachers and the introduction of French-language procedures in Anglophone-region courts and schools. The response to the protests was one marked by excessive use of violence.

Cameroon’s ‘Anglophone Crisis’

In the subsequent months, the situation only deteriorated. This provided fertile ground for the emergence and/or engagement of several non-state groups. As the International Crisis Group reported in September 2019, since 2017, as a result of the crisis, approximately 3,000 people have been killed, over 500,000 have become internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 40,000 sought refuge in Nigeria. In November 2019, UNICEF reported that close to 2 million people in the Anglophone Regions were in urgent need of humanitarian aid. 855,000 children were forced out of school because of the crisis.

Government forces are accused of involvement in extrajudicial killings, disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force, use of torture, forcible displacement of the population, using rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war, and attacks on hospitals. The non-state actors involved in the crisis have been accused of using torture, kidnappings, violence, rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war.

The new initiative, the Database of Atrocities aims to “aggregate, verify, secure, and publish information about atrocities or crimes against humanity committed by Cameroonian military and non-state armed groups.” The new initiative recognizes that to ensure justice in the future, evidence of the atrocities must be collected now. Indeed, the data collected now could be used to prosecute those most responsible for the crimes, whether in domestic courts or some form of international tribunal. It could also be used at a future national truth, justice, and reconciliation commission.

A New Approach To Engagement Sees Exemplary Results

The authors of the initiative are calling upon anyone with relevant information, including photos, videos, documents, or other proof of atrocities from October 2016 in Cameroon’s Anglophone North-West Region and South-West Region, to submit the information onto its website to be processed. The Database of Atrocities is hosted at the University of Toronto and is supported by Amnesty International’s Digital Verification Corps (University of California-Berkeley, University of Toronto, University of Pretoria and University of Essex) who will engage in the verification.

The new initiative must be commended. International actors may be too slow to act in setting up mechanisms that could help to collect the evidence of such atrocities and in ensuring that justice is served in the future. Civil society actors are stepping up to address the shortfall. Time will only tell whether the database triggers the attention that is needed and is able to secure the evidence. However, as the evidence is collected, it is crucial to explore options for how the evidence could be used to ensure justice for the victims and survivors of the atrocities. Cameroon, despite having signed the Rome Statute, the treaty underlying the International Criminal Court (the ICC), has not ratified the Rome Statute and hence is not subject to territorial jurisdiction of the ICC. However, considering the mass forcible displacement of thousands of Cameroonians to Nigeria (a state party to the Rome Statute), the ICC could (potentially) gain the required jurisdiction following the precedent of dealing with the situation in Myanmar/Bangladesh. However, there are other options as well. Where there is a will, there is a way to put a stop to impunity.

Source: Forbes

Cameroon teachers are protesting what they say is growing violence against them by both students and their parents, and the teachers are urging the government to protect them and reinstate corporal punishment. The teachers say the absence of corporal punishment is encouraging abuse of teachers. This week, several attacks on teaching staffs were reported, including one in which a teenage student fatally stabbed his teacher, in the capital.

Students shout Saturday at a government-run school in Obala, a town on the outskirts of Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, protesting the principal’s decision to destroy all mobile phones and knives seized from children Friday at the school.  One of their senior discipline masters, Narcisse Ateba, says the students use mobile phones to access social media platforms that promote violence, and they also use sharp objects such as knives to attack their peers and teachers.

He says that some parents and students will want to harass or beat him up, but he has nonetheless decided to publicly destroy the 15 mobile phones found and seized by teachers from students Friday because it is illegal to use them in classrooms. He says he will not allow students to come to school with razor blades, box-cutters and knives.

The destruction of the mobile phones and the peaceful marches to administrative offices and palaces are part of protests by teachers at Obala against what they say are increasing acts of violence against them.

This week, a 16-year-old student at the public school Nkolbisson in a neighborhood in Yaounde is accused of using a knife to stab his mathematics teacher who died of excessive bleeding as he was being rushed to a hospital. The school said the student insisted on using his mobile phone in class against the teacher’s instruction. The student was arrested and detained by police, and will be answering to charges, including premeditated killing.

Another teacher this week was battered by students in Douala for questioning why they were late to school, and yet another teacher in Douala was beaten by a parent and fell into a coma. The parent was said to be angry with the teacher’s decision to use corporal punishment on his son as punishment for making noise in class. In another incident, a student used a machete to chop off another student’s finger in Obala after a fight during a soccer match.

Elvis Yisinyuy, an official with the Cameroon Teachers Trade Union in Yaounde, says attacks by students on teachers intensified in 2015 when Cameroon prohibited teachers from beating or severely punishing students.

“When a minister says that teachers are not supposed to administer corporal punishment to students, the student will now see that he [the minister] has the right to bring disorder because there is nothing the teacher can do in class,” said Yisinyuy. “The minister should revisit the text and permit teachers to administer corporal punishment with caution.

Yusinyuy said the high wave of drug consumption by students and the inability of teachers to use corporal punishment because they have been prohibited from doing so is also responsible for the wave of attacks.

Nalova Lyonga, Cameroon minister of secondary education, says corporal punishment can not be tolerated because it is an abuse on the rights of students who are mostly children.

“What I have told the teachers is that they themselves have to make a distinction between a disciplinary case and a case which becomes a criminal case, and they should be able to report to the special police at the disposal of the schools,” said Lyonga.

Lyonga said Cameroon students are exposed to other cultures of the world because of the increasing use of mobile phones, and they gain access to social media platforms that promote violence, while neglecting the peace and unity that Cameroon traditionally preaches.

Carol Kayum, president of Reference Citizens, a non-governmental organization that promotes citizenship education, has been visiting schools in Yaounde to educate both teachers and students against violence. She says Cameroon should uphold it’s culture of non-violence to prevent the growing number of assaults on other students and teachers.

“Our cultures are rich. Parents should transmit them to children, and also there should be communication between schools and parents so that we know what our children are doing in school, and we also tell the school authorities what the children do at home,” said Kayum. “School authorities and parents should control the use of drugs.

Kayum said many people now join the teaching profession because they lack jobs, and not for the love of teaching, and as such, they are not loved by students.

The students also have complained they are harassed by some teachers whom they accuse of behaving poorly or not teaching well.

The Cameroon Ministry of Secondary Education has recorded 40 violent attacks by students on their peers, 22 attacks on teachers and 15 attacks by parents on teachers within the past  month. 

Source: VOA

Mbappe Arnold Alexandre, Student of Government Bilingual High School, GBHS, Obala in the outskirts of Yaounde, is currently receiving emergency medical attention at the Obala District Hospital after his finger was chopped off by his classmate with the aid of a machete.

The incident happened Wednesday, January 15, 2020 at the campus of “Lycée Bilingue d’Obala” (GBHS Obala) in the Lekie Division of Cameroon’s Centre Region after an altercation during a football match.

Mbappe Arnold Alexandre is seen on a hospital bed with blood oozing out of his left hand as a medic attends to him. His left thumb is shown lying in a plate close to him. He says he had a disagreement with his classmate on a football pitch and the classmate decided to engage him in a fight. The said classmate was later given a machete by other students with which he committed the chilling act. 

From his hospital bed, the victim explains: “We were cleaning up the campus given that the Delegate (apparently the Divisional Delegate of Secondary Education for Lekie Division) was supposed to visit. We were playing football in the school field when I engaged my classmate in a ‘rough tackle’ in an attempt to get the ball. I quickly explained to him that it was not intentional. But he hit me and that is how a fight started. Other students then came in. I don’t know when he got hold of a machete. I only saw when he raised the machete against me. I raised my hand to block the machete. That is how the machete cut off my left thumb. He then escaped.”

We get from the said video that Mbappe Arnold Alexandre was rushed to the Obala District Hospital by other students and medics immediately attended to him without any preconditions.

Wednesday’s incident comes few hours after a student of GHS Nkolbisson brutally murdered his Mathematics teacher. On Tuesday, January 14, 2020, Njomi Tchakounte Boris Kevin, a Mathematics teacher at Government High School Nkolbisson was stabbed to death by a Form 3 student, a release from the cabinet of the Minister of Secondary Education said.

The 15-year-old male student is now under police custody. Preliminary investigations and eyewitness accounts suggest that after days of premeditating the murder, the drama unfolded Tuesday as students watched on.

The student is said to have had a disagreement with the teacher, promising to knife the teacher Tuesday, according to testimonies from some students in the presence of the Minister. In an attempt to call the student to order at the start of his lesson, the teacher unfortunately went physical with the unyielding student who pulled out a knife hidden under his uniform and stabbed the 26-year-old teacher who later died at the Yaoundé University Teaching Hospital (CHU).  The student is said not to be a first time offender, reportedly dismissed from previous schools.

The Minister of Secondary Education, Prof. Nalova Lyonga had following Tuesday’s incident said the problem of indiscipline stands out as one of the challenges to stakeholders in her ministry. It is not known what measures government will take to stem such dangerous tides.

Source: Cameroon Info.Net