15 Detained Buea Prison SC Activists Petition K.Annan

We write to draw your attention to the fact that Cameroon continues to arrest and torture Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC) members inspite international pressure and legal counsel to the contrary. This in no way is provoking the SCNC to adopt violent reactions so that they can blacklist SCNC as a terrorist organisation . For 55 years, advocates of the Southern Cameroons independence have been killed, `maimed, imprisoned unlawfully, raped and robbed of their basic human rights and their right to a sovereign homeland.

Successive generations of SCNC activists have stood for “the force of argument not the argument of force.” This has yielded few fruits because of the intransigence of the brutal and repressive successive regimes of la republique du Cameroun. As recently as Sunday 17th July 2016, 16 SCNC activists were arrested by a mixed contingent of SED (state secretariat for defence) Public Security and Special branch police, while they waited to be served food at a roadsisde restaurant in Molyko, Buea and whisked off to police custody.

After spending four days in an airtight, dark and dirty police cell they were taken before the State Counsel who wasted no time to remand all in Prison Custody. When 14 of the activists were arraigned before Court of Firist Instance Buea, the Presiding Magistrate, Beactrice Nambangi refused to grant them bail. They are consequently still languishing in the overcrowded prison cells the Buea Central Prison. Excellency, on this score, we are appealing to you to use high offices to find a lasting solution to our plight.