CAMEROON: ARRESTS AND CIVIL SOCIETY BANS RISK INFLAMING TENSIONS IN ENGLISH-SPEAKING REGIONS

20 January 2017, 15:56 UTC

The Cameroonian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release two civil society leaders arrested in the English-speaking part of the country, and lift the ban imposed on their organization, Amnesty International said today.

On 17 January the Minister of Territorial Administration banned the activities of the Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC) and the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC). The president of the CACSC, Barrister Nkongho Felix Agbor-Balla, and its Secretary General, Dr. Fontem Aforteka’a Neba, were arrested, sparking protests in the southwest city of Buea.

On the same day both Agbor-Balla and Dr. Fontem Neba had signed a statement calling for protest activities to be carried out without violence.

“These two men have been arrested solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression. This flagrant disregard for basic rights risks inflaming an already tense situation in the English-speaking region of the country and is clearly an attempt to muzzle dissent,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi, Amnesty International Central Africa Researcher.

According to the Minister of Territorial Administration, “all activities, meetings and demonstrations initiated or promoted by the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC), the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC), any other related groups with similar objectives or by anyone partisan to these groups, are hereby prohibited all over the national territory”.

The government has accused the two groups of supporting a series of demonstrations that began in late October 2016 across several cities in the English-speaking region of Cameroon. The protesters are calling, among other things, for an end to the use of French in courts and schools. This week a “ghost town” strike – where citizens are asked to remain at home – was called in the regions’ main cities.

“This worrying pattern of arbitrary arrests, detention and harassment of civil society members is entirely at odds with the international human rights law and standards that Cameroon has committed to uphold,” said Ilaria Allegrozzi.

In December, at least two unarmed protesters were killed in Bamenda, the largest city in the English-speaking region, when security forces used live ammunition to disperse a protest.

For more information please call Amnesty International’s press office in Dakar, Senegal, +221 77 658 62 27 or +221 33 869 82 31; Email: sadibou.marong@amnesty.org

US President-elect Donald Trump refused to take questions from a CNN correspondent during a tense exchange at a press conference, blasting the news network for spreading “fake news.” During the contentious exchange at Trump Tower on Wednesday, CNN’s Jim Acosta pressed Trump to take a follow-up question after the president-elect assailed CNN for publishing a report Tuesday which included allegations that Russian operatives claimed to possess compromising personal and financial information about Trump.

“Mr. President -elect since you are attacking our news organization can you give us a chance,” asked Acosta. “Not you, your organization is terrible!” Trump shouted back. “I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news!” “Don’t be rude,” Trump interjected, after Acosta called his response “not appropriate” and tried to press on with his question. On late Tuesday, CNN covered a report originally published by BuzzFeed News, alleging that Russia was in possession of “compromising” personal and financial information about Trump. The report dominated Trump’s press briefing, which was his first since July of last year. The New York billionaire slammed the media for spreading unsubstantiated news and said the release of such details about him would amount to a “tremendous blot” on the record of the US intelligence community.

CNN issued a statement after the presser, saying that its reporting on the so-called Russia dossier was “vastly different” from the one by other outlets and the “Trump team knows this.” Acosta said in a separate report that Trump’s spokesman Sean Spicer threatened to expel him from Trump Tower if he insisted to ask questions after his exchange with the incoming president. Spicer responded in a Fox News interview by calling on the reporter to apologize to Trump and “the entire press corps” over his “childish and inappropriate” behavior. “If you want to have a conversation and engage in a polite and respectful manner with the president-elect, he’s gonna treat you in kind,” Spicer said. “But if you come in hot and want to be disrespectful and rude, as Jim Acosta was today, he’s not gonna sit back and take it. This is a man who fights and wins.”

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Federal investigators have not ruled out terrorism as a possible motive in a shooting rampage that killed five people and wounded eight others at an airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Esteban Santiago, a 26 year-old resident of Anchorage,  Alaska, was taken into custody immediately following the shooting on Friday and questioned at length, according to officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

FBI agent George L. Piro, who is in charge of the Miami field office, said Santiago would be facing federal charges and will appear in federal court in Broward County on Monday.

Authorities said Santiago, an Iraq war veteran, suffered from psychological problems and had complained that the US government was controlling his mind. Santiago retrieved a semi-automatic handgun from his checked luggage and began firing indiscriminately after arriving in Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport from Alaska.

“After he claimed his bag, he went into the bathroom and loaded the gun and started shooting,” Broward County Commissioner Chip LaMarca said.

One witness said the attacker kept shooting until he ran out of ammunition for his handgun. The airport remains closed and planes scheduled to land there have been diverted to other airports in Florida.

“This is a senseless act of evil,” Florida Governor Rick Scott told reporters. A White House spokesman said President Barack Obama had spoken to Scott and other state officials. Obama said such tragedies had happened too often during his eight-year-term in office.

Incoming President Donald Trump said that it is a “disgraceful situation that’s happening in our country and throughout the world” and that it was too soon to say whether it was a terrorist attack. Santiago was sent to Iraq in 2010 and spent a year there as a combat engineer while serving the Puerto Rico National Guard. He later joined the Alaska National Guard.

His family members said he had been receiving treatment for mental problems which began after he returned from Iraq. Maria Luisa Ruiz, Santiago’s aunt from Union City, New Jersey, said, “He lost his mind. He said he saw things.”

A federal law enforcement official said Santiago had entered into an FBI office in Anchorage in November and was behaving erratically and was turned over to local police, who took him to a mental facility for evaluation.

During that visit, he told FBI agents that his mind was being controlled by a US intelligence agency, which was ordering him to watch videos by the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group.

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The new United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned that he is not a “miracle maker” and that the global body faces “very challenging times.”  Guterres made the remark on Tuesday before starting his first official day of work at the UN headquarters in New York after succeeding Ban Ki-moon as secretary general on January 1.

“I think it is useful to say there are no miracles…I am sure I am not a miracle maker,” he said. He went on to underscore the large number of complex crises around the world the United Nations must deal with, adding that the world body should have no “illusions” over the “challenging times” it faces.

“We see everywhere in the world conflicts that multiply and are interlinked and have triggered this new phenomenon of global terrorism,” he added. Guterres stressed that despite easing the sufferings of some people, “we still fail in the prevention of conflicts and conflict resolution.”

He went on to add that there is a large amount of resistance around the world and a large amount of skepticism over the UN’s role. “We need to be able to recognize our shortcomings, our failures…get rid of the straightjacket of bureaucracy,” he added. “The only way we can achieve our goals is to really work together as a team and serve the values enshrined in the Charter and that unite humanity.”

Guterres was elected for the post by the UN General Assembly for a five-year term on October 13 last year. He was the prime minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from June 2005 to December 2015. In his first message as the UN chief, Guterres called on all people across the globe to put “peace” above all else. “Let us resolve to put peace first,” he said.

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Israeli investigators have questioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his official residence in Jerusalem al-Quds over allegations of corruption. A police vehicle with three officers was seen arriving at Netanyahu’s residence on Monday evening. The investigators spent more than three hours quizzing him before leaving the residence at around 23:00 local time.

The investigators later issued a statement, saying Netanyahu was “questioned under caution on suspicion that he accepted (improper) benefits,” terminology that indicated Netanyahu was a criminal suspect in the case. Earlier in the day, screens had been mounted at the entrance to the property in central Jerusalem al-Quds to block view.

Following the completion of the questioning, attorney general Avichai Mandelblit said that Netanyahu had been accused of ethics breaches. Mandelblit had said earlier that he authorized a full-fledged criminal investigation after his office gathered sufficient evidence.

A string of probes and corruption allegations

Reports emerged over the weekend that the World Jewish Congress’ president and Netanyahu’s long-time ally, Ronald Lauder, had given the Israeli prime minister and his son expensive gifts.

Netanyahu is already under another investigation over suspicions that he accepted one million euros (about 1.1 million dollars) from accused French fraudster Arnaud Mimran for campaign funds during the 2009 Israeli elections.

There are also calls for Netanyahu to be investigated for his role in a billion-dollar deal to purchase three submarines from German shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems GmbH.

Netanyahu’s personal lawyer and one of his closest confidants, David Shimron, reportedly represented the German company behind the submarine contract.

The Israeli prime minister is separately also subjected to accusations that he and his wife, Sara, misappropriated public funds to pay for private expenses, ranging from laundry to ice cream.

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US President-elect Donald Trump will repeal “a lot” of President Barack Obama’s executive actions on his first day in the White House, says a top aide of America’s 45th president. Sean Spicer, Trump’s designated White House press secretary, told ABC on Sunday that the incoming president was planning to immediately annul some of Obama’s actions that he thinks have “hampered” the economy.

He would repeal “the regulations and actions that have been taken by this administration over the last eight years that have hampered both economic growth and job creation,” Spicer said without revealing more details. Trump has not hold back on criticizing Obama’s decisions on immigration, energy regulation and foreign policy. He has accused Obama of jeopardizing the country’s security by accepting thousands of refugees without using a proper vetting process. The Republican president-elect has pledged to deport undocumented immigrants and build a wall on the border with Mexico.

The New York businessman has also indicated that he would pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Obama was a signatory to the pact, which entered into force on November 4. Trump, who believes climate change is a “hoax” created by China, has picked Scott Pruitt, attorney general of Oklahoma and a skeptic of climate change, to head the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

On foreign policy, Trump has undermined Obama’s stance on Russia and has accused the outgoing president of “creating” the Daesh (ISIL) terror group. He says he would cooperate with Russia in the fight against Daesh. Spicer said Sunday that Trump was also going to “bring a new brand to Washington” by banning members of his administration from becoming lobbyists for a period of five years after they leave his government. “It’s very forward-thinking,” he said. “What we’ve had in the past is people who have looked in the rearview mirror. This time, we’re thinking forward. If you want to serve in a Trump administration, you’re going to serve this country, not yourself.”

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A Republican lawmaker and major gun advocate has been arrested over beating his wife and threatening to kill her with a gun as his young children beg him to stop. Police authorities in the state of South Carolina’s Aiken Country released audio recording of an emergency 911 call on Friday from inside the home of state Representative Chris Corley, which is punctuated with screams of what the dispatcher believed were the lawmaker’s children “begging for their father to stop” beating their mother.

No one speaks during the call, the first of three relevant to the violent incident. All that can be heard are screams in the background. “Please stop,” is screamed repeatedly. “Just stop, daddy. Just stop. Why are you doing this, daddy?” Audio of the call was released by the Aiken County Sheriff’s Office just days after the 36-year-old legislator was arrested on charges of domestic violence and pointing a gun at his wife.

The operator in the initial call was clearly shaken and contacts the Aiken County 911 operator in a bid to send police officers to Corley’s home in the city of Graniteville. “I had a caller, sounded a lot like children screaming for help and begging for their father to stop,” said the operator. The call ends with the county operator saying she will dispatch officers to the house.

However, Sheriff’s deputies would later get a follow-up phone call from a different woman, who is not identified but presumably is Corley’s mother-in-law. She is heard telling deputies that a man with a gun “beat his wife and he’s threatening to kill his self (sic).”

By this time, Corley’s wife and two of their children had fled across the street to her mother’s home. Corley was later arrested on charges that he punched his wife in the face and threatened to kill her as he pointed a 9 mm pistol at her during an argument at their home after she accused him of cheating, according to Aiken County sheriff’s records.

The lawmaker faces a felony charge of first-degree criminal domestic violence, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Corley’s 37-year-old wife told police officers later that the only thing that kept him from shooting her were the screams of two of their children, aged 2 and 8. The legislator then went into a bedroom, saying he “was going to kill himself,” his wife added as quoted in the police report on the incident, which noted that as Corley headed for the bedroom, his wife and children ran to her mother’s house across the street.

However, Aiken County Magistrate Melanie DuBose has released Corley, who is also a lawyer, but restricted him from handling any firearm, among other conditions of his $20,000 surety bond. The lawmaker was elected in 2014 as a gun advocate and sponsored a resolution declaring June 2015 “Gun Violence Awareness Month” to “raise awareness surrounding the issue of gun violence.”

Corley was little known as a legislator until he thrust himself into the national spotlight in 2015, when he suggested on the floor of the South Carolina House that removing the Confederate flag from the State House grounds was equivalent to the state’s Republican Party surrendering to political correctness in the wake of the Charleston church shooting massacre, in which a white supremacist gunned down several African American worshippers.

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