Amnesty Int’l shames Yaounde for keeping MRC protesters in jail.

The protesters are still being held in detention facilities in the nation’s economic capital, Douala, where they were arrested alongside some 500 others by armed-to-the-teeth security officers.

The rights organisation in a report released January 25, by its Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Samira Daoud, stated that failure to release the 23 detainees is “deeply disappointing”.  

A request for their release, the Amnesty International Regional Director boss said, has been rejected by the High Court of Wouri.

“We are deeply disappointed that the authorities have failed to recognise the arbitrary nature of the ongoing detention of these protestors. Arresting and imprisoning people solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly is an arbitrary act and fails to meet Cameroon’s obligations under international human rights law,” Samira Daoud stated in the report.

The Amnesty International official was categorical that: “These 23 protestors have not committed a single crime and should be immediately and unconditionally released”.

“All others detained in the country for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly must also be freed,” Samira Daoud added.

Worth recalling is the fact that in September 2020, over 500 people were arrested for participating in protests organised by the opposition MRC party.

Most of the protesters, the rights organisation stated, had “never been politically active yet joined the MRC-organised protest in Douala having grown concerned about Cameroon’s economy and other issues”.

Amnesty International recalled that the arrested protesters spent a week in detention in an overcrowded cell in a police station, were transferred to the central prison in Douala and charged with “insurrection” and “public demonstrations”, among other charges. They were later sentenced to five years in prison by a Military Court on December 7, 2021.

The rights group noted that the protesters were arrested simply for “exercising their right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly”.

The organisation denounced what they termed the “arbitrary nature of their detention” and also called for their “immediate and unconditional release”.

Amnesty International further detailed that last November 4, 2022, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention published an opinion, which found that the detention of 15 MRC activists who had participated in demonstrations in either January 2019 or September 2020 was completely arbitrary.

The rights organisation said lawyers representing the 23 people sentenced for their participation in the September 2020 protests in Douala used the Working Group’s opinion as a basis for submitting ‘habeas corpus’ requests for their immediate release.

Amnesty International added that the judge on January 25 rejected the request for immediate release of the 23 people.

It added that an appeal hearing will take place on March 16, 2023, to rule on the case of one of the detained protesters, Dorgelesse Nguessan.