Cameroon: Lawyers promise justice to victims of police brutality

The voiceless and badly treated are to receive hope soon as some lawyers come together to provide free assistance to victims of injustice in Cameroon. The initiative is that of a group of lawyers who call themselves “Avocats sans frontieres  humanitaires du Cameroun”, literally, Cameroon Lawyers without   Humanitarians Borders.

The team which comprises lawyers from the Cameroon Bar  and the Paris Bar  will provide indispensable assistance to thousands of Cameroonians detained without any trial at all.

According to Cameroon-Info.Net, the legal practitioners have created a website to facilitate the work.

“The website is one of the pillars of our strategy. Not only will it enable people file their complaints, it will also ensure a follow-up of the evolution of the files”, says Barrister Antoine Mandeng, secretary general of the association.

The association will equally educate stakeholders in the legal field on the respect of human rights.

Quoting La Nouvelle Expression, Cameroon-Info.Net reports that official statistics from the Ministry of Justice reveal that out of 25, 908 detainees, 15, 853 are still suspects while the rest have been judged and sentenced. Thus, about 61% of the detainees are suspects while the remaining 39% or so have had their fate sealed.

Several reports from rights groups have deplored the abuse of human rights by the Biya regime. Currently, several journalists and other groups of persons are in detention for reasons beyond our comprehension, given that fair trials have not been observed in most cases.