African Union Must Act On Cameroon’s Human Rights Violations

The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 64 other civil society organizations in calling on the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) to address serious and systematic human rights violations in Cameroon, including the jailing of journalists.

In a letter to the commission, CPJ and other signatories noted that over the past three years, violence in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions has led to 3,000 deaths , forced half a million people to flee their homes, and left over 700,000 children out of school .

Several journalists are behind bars, according to CPJ research. These include Paul Chouta , Mancho Bibixy , Tsi Conrad , Thomas Awah Junior , Amadou Vamoulke , Wawa Jackson Nfor and Samuel Wazizi , who has not been heard of since he was detained by the military on August 2.

The signatories said that the commission should make accountability for human rights violations a priority of its strategy and intervention in Cameroon.

Read the letter in full in English and French .
Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator, worked as a journalist for more than two decades in South Africa, including as editor of the Mail and Guardian. She is a former secretary-general of the SA National Editors' Forum, edited The Witness and The Mercury, and was presidential correspondent during Nelson Mandela's term as South Africa's first democratically elected president. Follow her on Twitter @angelaquintal.