Politics

4, February 2022

France’s Macron to meet Putin and Zelensky in separate talks next week ⁰

French President Emmanuel Macron will meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Feb. 7 and the leader of Ukraine on Feb. 8 to discuss the Ukraine situation, as Western world leaders try and avoid a major conflict with Russia over Ukraine.

Macron’s office added he would meet Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev a day after his meeting with Putin.

Macron has said that finding a negotiated path towards de-escalating tensions over Ukraine was a priority, even as the United States has said it was sending 3,000 extra troops to Poland and Romania as Russia amassed troops near Ukraine.

Macron held separate phone calls with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders on Thursday to try to make progress on the status of the Donbass region as part of efforts to defuse tensions, said Macron’s office in a statement on Thursday.

That statement had also said Macron had underscored to Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky the importance of discussing the conditions to reach strategic balance in Europe which would enable a reduction in tension on the ground and guarantee security on the continent.

The United States had also said on Thursday that Russia has formulated several options as an excuse to invade Ukraine, including the potential use of a propaganda video showing a staged attack, as the Kremlin condemned American troop deployments in the region.

Source: REUTERS

3, February 2022

West African leaders hold summit after wave of coups brings turmoil to region ⁰

West African leaders hold a key summit on Thursday as a series of coups buffet a region struggling with poverty and a long history of turbulence.

Emergency talks in the Ghanaian capital Accra were triggered after Burkina Faso on January 24 became the third member of the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to be overtaken by the military.

Burkina followed Mali, where a coup in September 2020 was followed by a second in May 2021, and Guinea, where elected president Alpha Conde was ousted last September.

Adding to the region’s turmoil was a gun attack on Tuesday on the president of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, stoking fears that years of efforts to steer West Africa towards stability and democracy are failing.

Thursday’s one-day meeting, scheduled to start at 1000 GMT, will assess the outcome of two missions to Burkina following the coup.

Burkina was suspended from ECOWAS after rebel soldiers arrested President Roch Marc Christian Kabore amid public anger at his handling of a jihadist insurgency.

The question now is whether the country — ranked a wretched 182nd out of 189 countries in the UN’s worldwide development index — will escape economic punishment.

ECOWAS has already slapped crippling sanctions on Mali and Guinea for dragging their feet on commitments to restore civilian rule.

Those measures have included the closure of borders by ECOWAS members, an embargo on trade and financial transactions and sanctions against individuals.

Positive signs

Military chiefs from ECOWAS flew to Ouagadougou on Saturday for talks with the junta, and this was followed on Monday by a diplomatic mission led by Ghana’s foreign minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey.

Early reactions from the envoys have been positive.

“They seemed very open to the suggestions and proposals that we made. For us it’s a good sign,” Botchwey told reporters after meeting with strongman Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba and other junta members.

The talks were attended by the UN’s special representative for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), Mahamat Saleh Annadif, who described a “very frank exchange”.

The delegation notably met Kabore, whose wellbeing and demands for release from house arrest are major issues.

During the visit, the junta declared it had restored the constitution, which it had swiftly suspended following the coup, and named Damiba as president and head of the armed forces during a transition period.

And on Tuesday, Damiba met with political party chiefs, many of whom said they were keen to take part in the restoration of civilian rule.

But major questions remain unanswered, including the key issue of a date for elections. On January 24, the junta vowed to re-establish “constitutional order” within a “reasonable time”.

In deciding whether to impose sanctions, ECOWAS leaders have to balance the credibility of their organisation against the fragility of some of their states, especially in the Sahel.

Mali and Burkina Faso are in the throes of a nearly decade-old jihadist emergency that has claimed thousands of lives and forced at least one and a half million people from their homes.

Escalating political friction with the junta in Mali has driven Bamako closer to the Kremlin and cast a shadow over France’s anti-jihadist mission in the country.

Source: AFP

2, February 2022

Guinea-Bissau president says many dead after ‘failed attack against democracy’ ⁰

President Umaro Sissoco Embalo of Guinea-Bissau on Tuesday said he survived heavy fire for five hours during an attempted coup which he claimed killed or injured many people in the unstable west African country.

Appearing in a video posted on the presidency’s Facebook page hours after gunfire was heard near a compound where he was chairing a Cabinet meeting, Embalo said some of the people involved had been arrested.

“The attackers could have spoken to me before these bloody events that have seriously injured many and claimed lives,” he said, without clearly indicating who was behind the unrest.

But Embalo said the failed coup was linked to decisions he had taken “notably to fight drug trafficking and corruption”.

Shortly before the video appearance, the president told AFP in a brief telephone call: “All is well” and added that the situation is “under control”.

Earlier on Tuesday, sustained gunfire was heard near the seat of government in the coup-prone West African state in what the African Union and a regional bloc called an “attempted coup”.

Heavily-armed men had surrounded the Palace of Government, where Embalo and Prime Minister Nuno Gomes Nabiam were believed to have been attending a cabinet meeting.

People were seen fleeing the area on the edge of the capital Bissau, near the airport.

Local markets were closed and banks shut their doors, while military vehicles laden with troops drove through the streets.

According to various accounts, in the early afternoon armed men were seen entering the government palace, which houses different ministries.

Some witnesses described the gunmen as military, others as civilians.

Gunfire could be heard for a large part of the afternoon when the complex was surrounded.

An AFP reporter was warned to leave the area by a man carrying a gun who pointed it at him.

The former Portuguese colony, just south of Senegal, is an impoverished coastal state of about two million people.

It has seen four military coups since gaining independence in1974, most recently in 2012.

In 2014, the country vowed to return to constitutional government, but it has enjoyed little stability since then, and the armed forces wield substantial clout.

A 36-year-old Frenchwoman living in Bissau, Kadeejah Diop, said she rushed to pick up her two children from school and witnessed armed troops entering the government complex.

“They made all the female workers leave. There was huge panic,” she told AFP by phone from her home. “Right now, we are holed up indoors. We have no news.”

Troops set up a security perimeter around the palace and kept people away.

A journalist, asking not to be named, reported that at the start of the afternoon the public television centre had been occupied by soldiers who refused to let staff leave. It was not clear if they were part of the coup bid or government loyalists.

African Union Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat expressed deep concern over the “attempted coup”.

An AU statement said he was following “with deep concern the situation in Guinea Bissau, marked by the attempted coup d’etat against the government”.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) also issued a statement saying it “condemns this attempted coup” and urged soldiers to “return to their barracks”.

The bloc warned that it “holds the military responsible for the well-being” of the president and government members.

The United Nations said Secretary General Antonio Guterres was “deeply concerned with the news of heavy fighting in Bissau”.

He called for “an immediate end to the fighting and for full respect of the country’s democratic institutions,” the UN’s statement said.

Election turmoil

Embalo, a 49-year-old reserve brigadier general and former prime minister, took office in February 2020 after winning a second-round runoff election that followed four years of political in-fighting under the country’s semi-presidential system.

He was a candidate for a party called Madem, composed of rebels from the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which had led Guinea-Bissau to independence.

His chief opponent, PAIGC candidate Domingos Simoes Pereira, bitterly contested the result but Embalo declared himself president without waiting for the outcome of his petition to the Supreme Court.

Late last year, the armed forces chief said members of the military had been preparing to launch a coup while the president was on a working trip to Brazil.

Troops had been offering bribes to other soldiers “in order to subvert the established constitutional order”, armed forces head General Biague Na Ntam said on October 14.

The government spokesman denied his account the following day.

In addition to volatility, Guinea-Bissau struggles with a reputation for corruption and drug smuggling.

Its porous coastline and cultural ties have made it an important stop on the Africa trafficking route. In 2019, nearly two tonnes of cocaine were seized.

Three countries in West Africa – Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso – have experienced military takeovers in less than 18 months.

The region’s mounting instability is scheduled to be discussed on Thursday at an ECOWAS summit in Accra, Ghana.

“It looks increasingly hard to argue against the idea of coup contagion,” Eric Humphrey-Smith, an analyst at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, told Reuters.

“When added to successful coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Chad in the past year, there is no doubt that West African leaders are nervously looking over their shoulders.”

Source: REUTERS

31, January 2022

African Union suspends Burkina Faso over coup ⁰

The African Union said Monday it had suspended Burkina Faso in response to the January 24 coup that ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré.

The bloc’s 15-member Peace and Security Council said on Twitter it had voted “to suspend the participation of #BurkinaFaso in all AU activities until the effective restoration of constitutional order in the country”.

Moussa Faki Mahamat, chair of the African Union Commission, had already condemned the coup before the military junta officially announced that it had ousted Kaboré.

Burkina Faso’s coup is the latest bout of turmoil to strike the impoverished, landlocked state that has suffered chronic instability since gaining independence from France in 1960.

The coup leader, Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Damiba, has not set a timeline for Burkina Faso’s return to constitutional order besides a vague promise to do so “when the conditions are right”.

Insecurity and coups

A jihadist insurgency that spread over Mali’s border has killed more than 2,000 people and forced 1.5 million to flee their homes since 2015.

Between 2015 and 2018, terrorist attacks targeted the capital Ouagadougou and other centres of power. Since 2019, attacks by mobile combat units targeted mostly rural zones in the north and east of the country, fuelling displacements en masse and intercommunal violence. Some 2,000 people were killed, among them civilians and members of the armed forces or the Volunteers for the Defence of the Homeland, a civilian auxiliary group of the army created in 2020.

Islamist militants now move freely across entire swaths of the country and have forced inhabitants of some regions to conform to a strict version of Islamic law. Meanwhile, the army’s continuing fight against the Islamists has depleted the country’s already meagre resources.

The West African bloc ECOWAS suspended Burkina Faso on Friday and sent a delegation to meet with the ruling junta Saturday.

Mali and Guinea, also in West Africa, have also seen coups in the past 18 months that have prompted AU suspensions. In opening remarks at Friday’s summit, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo, the acting ECOWAS chairman, acknowledged the organisation has work to do convincing people of the benefits of democracy.

The AU has also suspended Sudan following a coup there on October.

The spate of coups is expected to be a major point of discussion at the AU summit in Addis Ababa this weekend, diplomats say.

Source: REUTERS

28, January 2022

Southern Cameroons crisis can’t be solved unless Yaoundé ends occupation ⁰

The Ambazonia Interim Government has slammed serious violations of Southern Cameroons national sovereignty and territorial integrity by the French Cameroun regime in Yaounde during this period of the Africa Cup of Nations, saying that the 5 year-old crisis could only be resolved when French Cameroun occupation ends.

Speaking exclusively to Cameroon Concord News Group late on Tuesday, Southern Cameroons Secretary of the Economy, Tabenyang Brado noted that the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia continues to be seriously violated either through the Africa Cup of Nations or by acts of aggression carried out by French Cameroun army soldiers loyal to the Biya regime in Yaounde.

Secretary Tabenyang Brado also opined that the crisis between the two Cameroons has no military solution and furthered that the conflict cannot also come to an end without French Cameroun ending its occupation.

The Southern Cameroons front line leader said military deployments, aggression and targeted killings teleguided by the French Cameroun regime have created continuous sufferings for the people of Southern Cameroons, adding that all Francophone and uninvited Atanga Nji Boys must leave the Federal Republic of Ambazonia without any precondition or further delay.

The Yaounde government has quietly acknowledged that though untrained, Southern Cameroonian fighters have proven that they are a force to reckon with. The country’s military is still not believing that a ragtag military could bring such destruction to a trained military.

Today, instead of using conventional methods, Southern Cameroonian fighters are employing explosive devices which are wreaking havoc on government military equipment and on army soldiers. A small disagreement between citizens of a country has been allowed to snowball, ruining the country’s economy and making secession a possibility. Southern Cameroonians have lost the love they once had for a country they once called theirs.

The success scored by the fighters in Ground Zero could also be attributed to the leadership structure which Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe and his collaborators had left behind following his arrest and repatriation to Yaounde in circumstances which clearly defied international law.

By Chi Prudence Asong with additional reporting from Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

28, January 2022

US: Biden pledges to nominate Black woman to Supreme Court within weeks ⁰

President Joe Biden on Thursday said he plans by the end of February to nominate a Black woman to replace retiring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a historic first that he called “long overdue.”

Biden appeared with Breyer, whom he has known since the 1970s, at the White House after the 83-year-old justice formally announced his retirement in a letter to the president. Breyer wrote that he plans to depart at the conclusion of the court’s current term, typically at the end of June, assuming his successor has been confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Biden, who won the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination in large part because of strong support from Black voters, noted that he committed during that campaign to name a Black woman to a lifetime post on the high court and would keep his promise.

“Our process is going to be rigorous. I will select a nominee worthy of Justice Breyer’s legacy of excellence and decency,” Biden said, calling the selection of a Supreme Court justice one of a president’s most serious constitutional responsibilities.

“While I’ve been studying candidates’ backgrounds and writings, I’ve made no decision except one: the person I nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity – and that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court. It’s long overdue, in my view,” Biden said.

Potential nominees include Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former Breyer law clerk confirmed by the Senate last June to serve on an influential U.S. appellate court, and Leondra Kruger, who serves on the California Supreme Court. Another potential contender is Michelle Childs, a federal district court judge in South Carolina who Biden already has nominated to the U.S. appeals court in Washington.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Biden believes that being a sitting judge is not prerequisite for his nominee and that whether a candidate could draw support from Republicans is not an influencing factor.

Biden said he wants the Senate, which his fellow Democrats control by a razor-thin margin, to “move promptly” once he chooses his nominee. Democrats can confirm a nominee without a single Republican vote because Republicans in 2017 changed the Senate rules to no longer require 60 of the 100 senators to allow Supreme Court nominations to move forward.

While Breyer’s retirement after 27 years gives Biden his first chance to fill a vacancy on the nine-member court, it will not change its ideological balance. The court’s 6-3 conservative majority has shown a growing willingness to reshape the law on contentious issues including abortion and gun rights. Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump appointed three justices during his single four-year term in office.

Breyer, the court’s oldest justice, often found himself in dissent on a court that has moved ever rightward. He spoke at the White House of the importance of a diverse nation like the United States resolving its deep divisions by adhering to the rule of law.

“People have come to accept this Constitution and they have come to accept the importance of the rule of law,” Breyer said, holding a copy of the 18th century foundational document in his hand.

White House reaching out to candidates

White House officials expect to begin reaching out to and potentially meeting with candidates as soon as next week, according to a source familiar with the situation. Biden is expected to work with a list of 10 or fewer people.

Senate Democrats aim to quickly confirm Biden’s nominee in a time frame similar to the one-month process that the chamber’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, used in 2020 to approve Trump’s third appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, according to a source familiar with planning.

Republicans are seeking to regain control of the Senate in the Nov. 8 congressional elections, underscoring the need for speed from the perspective of Democrats. McConnell has indicated he would block any Biden nominations to the court if his party regains the Senate majority.

McConnell said in a statement: “The president must not outsource this important decision to the radical left. The American people deserve a nominee with demonstrated reverence for the written text of our laws and our Constitution.”

Trump’s three conservative appointees who McConnell pushed through the Senate came from a shortlist prepared with the input of outside conservative legal activists associated with the Federalist Society.

Biden said he was expressing the nation’s gratitude to Breyer for his “remarkable career in public service” and noted past rulings the justice authored upholding abortion rights, voting rights, environmental measures and religious liberty.

“This is a bittersweet day for me,” Biden said. “I think he’s a model public servant in a time of great division in this country.”

Source: REUTERS

26, January 2022

Italian MPs fail in third bid to elect president ⁰

Italian lawmakers failed Wednesday to elect a new president in a third round of voting, as bickering party leaders blamed each other for pushing the country towards a political crisis.

Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who was the frontrunner for the post ahead of the election, pocketed just five votes as parties panicked at the idea of pulling him from his job.

Political analysts have warned that moving the former European Central Bank head to the presidential palace could deal a fatal blow to an already weak ruling coalition, sparking snap elections.

A fourth round of voting will be held Thursday morning and could lead to a breakthrough, as the threshold for victory now falls from a two-thirds majority to an absolute majority.

Italy’s president is a ceremonial figure but wields great power in crises. Doubts over candidates led some 412 of the 1,000 or so voting MPs, senators and regional representatives to cast blank ballots Wednesday.

Outgoing 80-year old president Sergio Mattarella — who has repeatedly ruled out serving a second term — won the most votes, with 125 ballots.

Names ‘shot down’

Draghi, 74, who was brought in to lead a national unity government a year ago, had been hailed by some as the best candidate for the seven-year presidential post because of his perceived skill in ensuring political stability.

Mario Draghi had been hailed by some as the best candidate for the seven-year presidential post because of his perceived skill in ensuring political stability.

Mario Draghi had been hailed by some as the best candidate for the seven-year presidential post because of his perceived skill in ensuring political stability. Alberto PIZZOLI AFP/File

But most insist he stay as premier to oversee reforms demanded in exchange for funds from the EU’s post-pandemic recovery scheme.

Rome is the biggest beneficiary of the programme, to the tune of almost 200 billion euros ($225 billion).

Draghi hinted last month he is interested in becoming head of state but has since remained silent on the issue.

Marco Travaglio, editor of the Fatto Quotidiano daily, compared him Tuesday to Francesco Schettino, the disgraced captain who was convicted of abandoning ship when the Costa Concordia cruise ship sank off Italy in 2012.

“The parties are asking him to stay (as PM), and he wants to escape,” he said.

‘Still in the race’

Draghi “is still in the race and still has a significant chance” of being elected, Giovanni Orsina, head of the Luiss School of Government in Rome, told AFP.

Former Chamber of Deputies speaker Pier Ferdinando Casini, 66, who got 52 votes Wednesday, had better chances, Orsina said, but warned “things change very quickly”.

Matteo Salvini, head of the far-right League party, accused the centre-left of shooting down every single name put forward by the right — which had initially backed billionaire magnate Silvio Berlusconi.

Berlusconi, who formally withdrew from the race on the weekend, won four votes at Wednesday’s ballot.

“I’m trying to negotiate”, but “any name I put forward I get ‘no’ from the opposite side,” Salvini said.

He and others on the right flatly rejected a proposal by the leader of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), Enrico Letta, for a lock-in similar to a papal conclave to force them to find a common candidate.

Letta’s suggestion we “shut ourselves in a room, (with just) bread and water” prompted Salvini Wednesday to quip: “if I lose three kilos it won’t hurt, but we don’t need” a lock-in.

Source: AFP

26, January 2022

Hundreds gather in Burkina Faso’s capital to support military coup ⁰

Supporters of the new junta in Burkina Faso gathered in the capital Ouagadougou on Tuesday as neighbouring countries, the UN and France condemned the military coup.

Military leaders on Monday detained Burkina Faso’s President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, later announcing they had ousted the leader, dissolved the government and suspended the constitution.

“I came here this morning to support the putsch. We expect the military to deal with the corruption in the country”, said one of hundreds of people gathered in Nation Square, Ouagadougou, on Tuesday.

As the crowds waved flags and sounded vuvuzela horns, some hoped the new leaders would tackle security concerns including jihadi attacks which have killed millions in the country. “We are tired of this situation. We are tired of crying, we are tired of always suffering because our brothers are killed”, said another.

The West African country is now in the hands of the Patriotic Movement for Preservation and Restoration (MPSR), the name of a junta led by Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba.

Source: France 24

24, January 2022

Burkina Faso soldiers announce military takeover, Kaboré ‘suspended’ ⁰

Burkina Faso’s army said on Monday it had ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, suspended the country’s constitution, dissolved government and closed the national borders. The announcement followed hours of confusion after gunfire erupted at army camps on Sunday night. Kaboré has not been seen since Sunday and his whereabouts remain unknown.

The military takeover statement was made in the name of a previously unheard of entity, the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration or MPSR, its French language acronym.

“MPSR, which includes all sections of the army, has decided to end President Kaboré’s post today,” it said.

It cited the deterioration of the security situation and what it described as Kaboré’s inability to unite the nation and effectively respond to the challenges it faces.

Earlier Monday, the African Union and the West African bloc ECOWAS both condemned what they called an attempted coup. The US and the EU have also called for Kaboré’s “immediate release”.

Source: France 24

24, January 2022

Consortium of CPDM Crime Syndicates: More than a hundred Ambazonia detainees and MRC opposition figures languishing in jail ⁰

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