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The University of Notre Dame in the USA, has sent an urgent petition to the UN against the brutal regime of Cameroon in regards with the arrest of one of its brightest student, Agbor Balla.The petition reads:

Felix Agbor Nkongho, ’06 LL.M., has been charged with treason, terrorism, and other capital offenses by a military court in Cameroon after recently leading a series of protests in English-speaking regions of the country. Media reports indicate that his trial will begin on February 1 in the capital city of Yaoundé.

Sean O’Brien, director of the LL.M. program in International Human Rights Law and Nkongho’s professor at Notre Dame, has filed a petition for urgent action with the Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Working with alumni of the LL.M. program, he successfully urged Amnesty International to issue a statement calling for Cameroon to “immediately and unconditionally” release Nkongho and his colleague.

“Felix is a well recognized and highly respected human rights defender. He has been targeted because of the effectiveness of his non-violent advocacy on behalf of the legal, educational, and cultural rights of Anglophone Cameroonians,” O’Brien said. “He should be released.”

French and English are both official languages in the African country, but English-speaking citizens like Nkongho think that government policies are discriminatory to English-speakers, particularly in the education and judicial systems.

A longtime human rights officer and legal adviser to various United Nations field missions, Nkongho is president of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, a non-governmental organization that advocates on behalf of English-speaking residents. The group objects to the government’s use of only French in courts and schools in Cameroon’s southwest and northwest provinces, which marginalizes and limits access to justice for English-speaking residents. Lawyers, teachers, and students have been striking and protesting since October 2016.

“West Cameroonians’ education, culture, language and economic aspirations have been severely undermined,” Nkongho wrote in a recent press release. “The people are thus very determined to secure their Anglo-Saxon heritage and aspirations as we enshrined in the constitution of 1961.”

Residents from English-speaking regions say they are excluded from civil service jobs, Nkongho said. Judges and administrators are often sent to manage court systems in English speaking regions without any knowledge of the language or the common law legal system.

The consortium is an organization made up of civil society organizations, professionals and trade unions to advocate for the rights of English-speakers in Cameroon. The group’s efforts are a part of a wider protest against government officials, and began on the day that schools were meant to reopen for the second term of the school year.

English-speaking residents account for about 20 percent of Cameroon’s 23 million people, said Nkongho. According to the Cameroonian constitution, which was adopted in 1972, both English and French are official languages with “the same status.” It also states, “The State shall guarantee the promotion of bilingualism throughout the country.”

Cameroon’s president Paul Biya, who has led the country since 1982, rarely makes statements in English. Most official documents, public exams, and news from the state broadcaster are in French.

The civil disobedience campaign, launched by the consortium, is expected to continue despite Nkongho’s arrest and trial.

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Rita Akana

01.Feb.2017

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Baretanews reports that the case against anglophone activists; Mancho Bibixy, Dr. Fontem Neba and Barrister Agbor Balla has been adjourned to the 13/02/17. Correspondence from the President of the Military Court was just sent to the defense counsel. No reasons were given for the adjournment. BaretaNews understands that these are delaying tactics to wane our people but we would not give up.

However, almost all Common Law and Civil Law Lawyers had traveled to Yaounde.Most are still on their way, BaretaNews can confirm. We are told that court or no court, senior colleagues have still resolved to go to the court tomorrow. They will be there in their numbers because one cannot trust this regime.

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Rita Akana

31.Jan.2017

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US President Donald Trump has fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who hours ago directed Justice Department employees not to defend his travel ban. Yates' replacement has been quickly sworn in.

The White House announced on Monday evening that Trump had fired Yates (pictured), for "betraying the Department of Justice" for refusing to enforce his executive order. 

"Ms. Yates is an Obama Administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration," the White House said in a statement.

Yates' Defiance

Sally Yates, who was named deputy attorney general by former US President Barack Obama in 2015, said Monday she was not convinced that Trump's executive order to bar US entry to people from seven Muslim nations was lawful.

"The Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the executive order," she said.

In a letter to Justice Department attorneys, Yates noted that Trump's order had been challenged in court in a number of jurisdictions.

"My responsibility is to ensure that the position of the Department of Justice is not only legally defensible, but is informed by our best view of what the law is," she wrote.

"I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution's solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right."

Resistance against the order

Earlier, Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit challenging the executive order as illegal and unconstitutional.

"No one is above the law - not even the president," Ferguson told a press briefing. "And in the courtroom, it is not the loudest voice that prevails. It's the constitution."

At least three top national security officials - Defense Secretary James Mattis, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Rex Tillerson, who are awaiting confirmation to lead the State Department - reportedly said they were unaware about the details of the directive until Trump signed it.

Former US President Barack Obama on Monday added his voice to a myriad of American figures criticizing President Trump's executive order.

Obama "fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discrimination against individuals because of their faith or religion," the former president's spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement .

Meanwhile, public protests against the "Muslim ban" continue in a number of major US cities.

Trump on Monday also replaced Daniel Ragsdale, the acting director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with Thomas Homan, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Homan has worked for ICE since 2013, where he has been in charge of the arrest and removal of undocumented immigrants.

DW

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Rita Akana

31.Jan.2017

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After cutting off the English-speaking regions from the Internet, targeting media outlets and stripping Cameroon’s beauty queen of her crown for speaking her mind, the government has now set its sights on journalists.

The Cameroonian Government seems especially worried that word gets out into the world about the situation in Anglophone regions. Journalists working for the international media, including DW’s correspondent in Cameroon, have been threatened with sanctions if they report on the conflict. In the meantime, the media regulator CNC (Conseil National de la Communication) has warned media outlets that they could see their licenses revoked if they report favorably on separatist or federalist demands by the English-speaking minority. In a statement, the regulator wrote that allowing English-speakers to voice their grievances in the media is likely "to adversely affect the Republican system, unity and territorial integrity, and the democratic principles on which the state stands," Journalists have reacted by accusing the CNC of trying to muzzle the press.

The widening clampdown by President Paul Biya’s government aims at strangling a protest movement by a segment of the population that feels it is being politically and economically sidelined by the Francophone majority. Both French and English are official languages in Cameroon. But many in the two English-speaking regions claim they have been discriminated against since independence in 1961, for instance in education and judicial system. They do not feel adequatley represented in government and complain of an erosion of the Anglophone identity.

Journalists are far from being the only targets of the clampdown. This weekend, Miss Cameroon Julie Frankline Cheugue was stripped of her crown. Earlier, the beauty queen had been accused of supporting strikes by professional groups of the English speaking regions. Cheugue had reportedly called on the Government of Cameroon to listen to the worries of the Anglophone. She told DW that she had learned about her dismissal through social media, and added that she was not going to accept this sanction, since she had been elected by the Cameroonians. "I am not in a political party. I am simply doing what a Miss is supposed to do. Concerning the Northwest and the Southwest: We are a united country and peace is everything. That is my only advice," Cheugue said.

But Solange Ingrid Amougou, president of the committee that organizes the Miss Cameroon election, told DW that Cheugue’s dismissal had come about because of insubordination and gross indiscipline. "As a model, she is supposed to promote the image of our country. She is not there to create disorder. She is not there to practice politics, because we are an apolitical organization," Amougou said. 

Biya’s heavy handedness

Sanctions against Cheugue for voicing an opinion are just one in a long list of measures which have been largely criticized as incommensurate. Last week, the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions were cut off from the internet in an effort to curb protests. The country’s mobile network operators forwarded subscribers a message by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, warning that they could face jail sentences of up to six months and huge fines if they published or spread information "that you can’t prove."

Protests began two months ago as strikes by lawyers and teachers. The lawyers complained that the influence of the French language was overbearing and wondered why French-speaking judges who don't understand English have been transferred to English-speaking regions. Thousands of English-speaking teachers, lawyers and students then joined the strikes to protest a perceived marginalization. 

Charged with terrorism

Clashes with the police have led to the death of several protesters. Calls have intensified for a referendum on federalism or even a secession, as protests grow in the regions where about a fifth of the country’s 22 million people live.

Yaounde’s Government adamantly opposes a federation or partition. But even demands for greater autonomy can land you in jail, as civil society leaders Felix Agbor Nkongho and Fontem Neba found out when they were arrested two weeks ago. Like many others detained in the clampdown, they now face charges of terrorism under a controversial 2014 anti-terror law and could yet be court-martialed. 

Moki Edwin/DW

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Rita Akana

31.Jan.2017

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Cameroon's military tribunal base in the nation's capital Yaounde is set to begin trial of all recently arrested Anglophone activists.Fears are rife that the arrested intellects together with some detained and yet to be arrested Anglophones might be charged with the newly promulgated and highly criticized 2014 anti-terrorism law. The anti-terrorism law No.2014/028 of 23 December 2014 on the suppression of acts of terrorism in Cameroon states partially that “whoever, acting alone as an accomplice or accessory, commits or threatens to commit an act likely to cause death, endanger physical integrity, cause body injury or material damage, destroy natural resource, the environment or cultural heritage with intent to…intimidate the public, provoke a situation of terror…disrupt the national functioning of public services…create widespread insecurity in the country, shall be punished with a death penalty…”

Those facing trial are;

• Lawyer Felix Agbor Balla – human rights activists and one of the lawyers leading talks with government during the last 3 months.
• Dr. Fontem Neba - University Professor and leader of the teacher’s union in higher education institutions.  He had also been part of negotiations with government since October.
• Mr. Penn – staff of CCAST Bambili one of Cameroon’s most well-known secondary school facilities and presumed to be a member of the teachers’ union
• Mr. Bibixy Mancho - a popular radio show host who played an active part in the protests
• Justice Paul Ayah - Former parliamentarian and magistrate, is Deputy Attorney General in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon.  
• Justice Sokem Ngale Mborh - Attorney General for the South West Region.

Cameroon's opposition leader Kah Walla, has appealed on the Cameroonian public to spread the news of the illegal arrest and prosecution to the world.She writes;

We must let the world know what is happening in Cameroon.  Here is what you can do:

1. Denounce this situation in every newspaper, on every radio and every television station in Cameroon.  

2. Inform our neighbors, friends and families on the truth of the situation.  Whether we agree with these leaders or not, the law has been broken in arresting them and their rights have been systematically violated.  Today it is them, tomorrow it will be you, your child, your neighbor.  Educate your fellow citizens on why it is important to defend the rights of these leaders.

3. Send an email to the Presidency of the Republic of Cameroon, the address is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  The President works for us.  We pay his salary and give him the luxurious life he leads.  In return, we want to be governed with respect for our rights as citizens and rule of law.  The President must know, his government has broken the law and we as citizens will not abide by this.

4. Inform every news and media outlet in the world.  On Wednesday, February 1st the eyes of the world must be on Cameroon.  Injustice, violence and illegality happens under the cover of darkness.  Shine the light of information on Cameroon and oblige our government to do what is right.  

5. Every day as of today tweet and put on your Facebook page at least five messages to #FreeAllArrested and for #JusticeinCameroon.  Tweeting and posting on Facebook is tracked by the international media and the volume of a hashtag will attract international media attention.  Five tweets a day by just a few thousand Cameroonians will put the eyes of the world on Cameroon and could save those who have been arrested.

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Rita Akana

30.Jan.2017

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Nine years ago, the Indomitable Lions were beaten by Egypt, who face Burkina Faso in this year's other semi-final, in the showpiece and will be hoping to go one better after a 15-year wait for the African title. 

The five-time winners, who will host the 2019 AFCON, face Ghana in the last four. The Black Stars were beaten finalists two years ago, but their spell without winning the trophy goes back more than 30 years to 1982. 

DATE, UK START TIME AND VENUE

The first Afcon semi-final between Cameroon and Ghana takes place at the Stade de Franceville in Franceville on Thursday February 2. Kick-off is scheduled for 7pm UK time.

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Rita Akana

30.Jan.2017

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