The Government of Cameroon Must Release Detained SCNC Members Immediately

CCDHR is calling on the Government of Cameroon to immediately and unconditionally release Ngewih Asunkwan, Philemon Ndamukong Mungu, Fondoh Cletus Che, Ndifon Stephen, Yuyari Issa, Ali Oscar, and Priscillia Khan. All seven individuals are officials of the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC), arrested at the SCNC National Secretariat in Bamenda on March 14, 2009 at gun point by 3 trucks of fully armed and seemingly combat-ready police officers. These individuals who were initially detained at the Bamenda Central Police Station were transferred on March 19, 2009 to the Bamenda Central Prison. They were initially held incommunicado under deplorable prison condition, tortured on a daily basis, and have been refused bail. Despite a hanging accusation that they were arrested for holding a meeting to disrupt the Popes’s visit to Cameroon, they remain to be officially charged with a crime.

CCDHR strongly condemns this action by the Government of Cameroon, which give further evidence of the ongoing illegal practice of indiscriminately and without reasonable suspicion, arresting and detaining innocent civilians who are critical of government policies and actions. These individuals, just like hundreds of others across the country are being held against their will for political reasons and are prisoners of conscience, not criminals. CCDHR is therefore calling on the Government of Cameroon to immediately release them and stop its daily campaign of terror on its citizens.

The SCNC, it should be recalled, is a pressure movement fighting against the marginalization of the Anglophones in Cameroon with the goal of achieving self-determination and independence for the former British Southern Cameroons. CCDHR recognizes that the actions of the Cameroon government regarding the arrest and detention of these SCNC officials have contravened the Cameroon Constitution which guarantees fair judicial process. In addition, government actions have violated provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code, including Section 30(4) which states that:

“No bodily or psychological harm shall be caused to the person arrested.”

Since their arrest, the SCNC activists have been detained under deplorable conditions, ill-fed, tortured daily, and systematically deprived of sleep. All these strategies being implemented by the Government of Cameroon against the detainees are consistent with dictatorships’ attempts to break the will of opponents and critics while slowly killing them. CCDHR notes that the Government of Cameroon and all its agents directly involved in this case will be responsible for any death resulting from the ill-treatment accorded the detainees and will be held accountable.

The continued detention of the SCNC officials also violates Section 37 of the Criminal Procedure Code which provides that:

“Any person arrested shall be given reasonable facilities in particular to be in contact with his family, obtain legal advice, make arrangements for his defence, consult a doctor and receive medical treatment and take necessary steps to obtain his release on bail.”

CCDHR would like to draw attention here to the precarious health situation of Philemon Abamukong Mungu, Fondoh Cletus che, and Priscillia Khan, who are reported to have been seriously sick since their arrest and detention, but are yet to be given any medical attention. CCDHR also notes that all access to the detainees was initially restricted, family members insulted and driven away from then detention center, and human rights advocates assaulted when they requested to meet with the detainees. Although some family members and lawyers have been able to meet with the detained SCNC officials, such visits have been highly scrutinized, directly monitored, and extremely time restrictive.

CCDHR is using this opportunity to requisition the Government of Cameroon to release all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience who are currently in detention across the country solely for purposes of their affiliation with opposition political movements, or for criticizing the autocracy of the regime. As Cameroon continues to drift rapidly into the path of authoritarian excesses, CCDHR is warning that no political state of affairs  exist in perpetuity and the time for reckoning will unravel all the misdeeds of the regime in Cameroon, its perpetrators, and others who encouraged, participated, or abated brutality on the people of Cameroon in any determinable way. Cameroonians have the right to live and express themselves without fear of persecution or death. This currently does not exist, and the Government of Cameroon must stop oppressing its people and give ample respect to the human rights principles recognized in the country’s constitution and international conventions which it has duly ratified.