In Yaounde

Some 27 civil society organisations have accused Cameroon’s long-serving president, Paul Biya of using the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) to conceal gross human rights violations in the country. 

In an open letter to the veteran leader, the rights groups among them the Committee to Protect Journalists, Amnesty International, Stand Up for Cameroon and the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa called on Biya to release all those they say are arbitrarily detained in the country for acts of free expression.

The letter said while the world watches with excitement how African nations are competing at the continent’s most prestigious football jamboree, the cheering and celebration masked the reality that over 100 people have been “shut up in prison” for “simply protesting”, most for more than a year, and some for over five years. 

Among those detained, the letter noted are journalists, Tsi Conrad, Thomas Awah Junior, Mancho Bibixy, and Kingsley Njoka.

The journalists, who earlier featured in CPJ’s annual census of jailed journalists around the world published in December, are detained on anti-state charges in the overcrowded Kondengui Central Prison in the nation’s capital, Yaounde, the letter said

“Indeed, while celebrations go on outside, these people are suffering inside crowded cells, counting the months or years that they have already spent in prison, and the months or years that await them still,” part of the letter read.

It said the detainees have done nothing beyond “peacefully exercising their human rights,” but Cameroon’s “draconian 2014 anti-terror law” can be interpreted to criminalize even peaceful protest. 

“Detaining people simply for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, as well as detaining people after trials with no independent procedural safeguards, is arbitrary and unlawful,” the groups stated in their letter to President Biya, who clocks 89 on February 13. He has been president of Cameroon since 1982.

The authors of the letter said they are aggrieved and shocked, “not only for these individuals and the injustice of their suffering,” but also for the greater injustice that their arbitrary detention represents. 

“If they are not free, then no Cameroonian is free. If they are languishing in prison for speaking out today, then anyone could be in prison for speaking out tomorrow,” the letter further read.

While calling for the release of those who they say are arbitrarily detained in the country for acts of free expression and free assembly, the organisations have also called on President Biya to reform laws that crimilise such.

“As the Afcon celebrations die down and world’s media move on from their focus on Cameroon, let’s work to build a society that we can truly celebrate,” the signatories of the letter recommended.