Cameroon: Separatist Leaders Clock 5 Months in Detention but Yet to be Seen by Rights Groups, Lawyers

Tuesday June 5, 2018 made five months that leaders of the self-proclaimed state of Ambazonia were arrested in Nigeria.

A few weeks later, they were extradited to Yaounde. Forty-seven people in total, the president and several movement leaders arrested in Abuja, as well as activists arrested near the border with Cameroon, reports said.

According to official sources, today, they all are in Cameroon All are therefore today in the Cameroonian capital, but very little is known about their fate.

Five months after their arrest in Nigeria, Anglophone separatist leaders are still in detention supposedly Secretariat of state for Defense (SED) in Yaoundé.

According to Cameroon’s Minister of Communication Issa Tchiroma Bakary who also doubles as government’s spokesperson while announcing the extradition of the separatist leaders to Cameroon, government was acting in respect of the legal procedures in force in Cameroon.

According to experts, the 47 activists are detained under the anti-terrorism law and that in terrorism cases; custody lasts 15 days, but can be renewed without limits.

On the other hand, according to several sources, the detainees have still not been able to be visited by their families or lawyers. This has caused some of the loyalists of the separatists’ cause to refer to this as an “abduction” and not arrest.

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The National Commission for Human Rights and Freedoms has also not met with separatist activists.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, who had denounced a violation of the principle of non-refoulement at the time of the extradition of separatists to Cameroon in late January, also has no clue about the detained persons.

Back in the crisis hit English speaking regions of the country, there have been repeated calls and pleas on the head of state to grant amnesty to everyone that has been jailed within the context of the ongoing Anglophone crisis.

During the recent outing of the National Commission for Bilingualism and Multiculturalism to the Northwest region for what it christened a “Listen to the People Mission,” calls for the release of everyone that has been arrested and jailed in relation to the current crisis abounded.

Most of the speakers given a chance at the PC Ntamulung Conference Hall, appealed for clemency to be granted to all arrested persons.

AQE