Organisation sends memo to Pope for release of political prisoners.

The detailed memo was handed to the Archbishop of the Douala Archdiocese, His Grace Samuel Kleda, on Monday, April 13, 2026. 

Among the women who handed the memo were renowned lawyer, Barrister Alice Nkom, Henriette Ekwe and wife of detained Djeukam Tchameni, Makini Tchameni.

In a statement announcing the move on Monday, COFEM said the move is within its campaign, codenamed: “Peace and reconciliation”. 

COFEM said its initiative is a “pacific drive,” to draw the attention of the Holy Father, to the plight of thousands of political prisoners in Cameroon.

COFEM said it is counting on the Holy Father to engage authorities to cause the release of all political prisoners in the country. 

It mentioned the case of Djeukam Tchameni of the Union for Change platform that backed Issa Tchiroma Bakary, in the October 12, 2025, Presidential election.

It should be recalled that Tchameni has been in detention since the last quarter of 2025. COFEM also disclosed that alongside the memo handed to the Douala Archbishop for the Pope’s attention, is an international petition it long launched pushing for the release of Tchameni and all those detained in relation to the crisis in the North West and South West Regions.

The same petition, the Network said, is also pressing for the release of those arrested and jailed or detained during the post-presidential election tensions of 2018 and 2025. 

COFEM said the petition, which had garnered 580,000 signatures online, carries the indignation of Cameroonians and the international community in the face of human rights violations and unjust detentions.

Parts of the Pope Leo XIV-destined memo, in which the group qualified the authors as “Committee for the Liberation of Prisoners of Opinion”, read that they are bringing to the Holy Father’s attention “a situation of extreme human, moral and political gravity currently prevailing in Cameroon”.

They wrote that the Pope is stepping his feet on Cameroonian soil, at the time the political space is shrinking, plus an armed conflict that continues to drag on in the two English-speaking Regions of the country. 

COFEM also makes a synopsis of the 2018 post-Presidential election tensions and the armed conflict in the English-speaking Regions.

On the October 12, 2025 election, the COFEM memo informs the Holy Father about the circumstances under which Anicet Ekane, leader of the opposition African Movement for New Independence and Democracy, MANIDEM, died on December 1, of the same year.

COFEM, in its memo, claimed that Ekane, “died of medical negligence,” while in detention, adding that it “tragically illustrates the risk faced by political prisoners in Cameroon”.

Through the Holy Father, the network said hope can come to a “suffering people”. It indicated that: “Cameroon needs: Justice to heal wounds, truth to restore trust, reconciliation to rebuild the nation”. It also added that, the “release of all political prisoners is an essential step towards lasting peace”.

Summing on their briefing on the situation of persons detained, the COFEM statement paints President Pau Biya’s country as a place where “prisoners of conscience have not received fair trials and are detained in conditions that violate human dignity”. It added that many of those detained “are deprived of their legal rights”.

COFEM argued that its reading of the situation in Cameroon is contrary to principles guiding human rights, justice, peace and human dignity that align with what the Catholic Church upholds.

To note that Pope Leo XIV, whose Apostolic visit to Cameroon starts today, will also be in Douala. His Grace Kleda who has also been critical of the regime, is expected to use the lap to deliver the memo to the visiting Holy Father.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3761 of Wednesday April 15, 2026