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GCI CEO, Samba Churchill has called on all media institutions and associations/organisations to mobilise themselves and meet the Minister of communication and the president on this important issue that affects negatively our democratic image. Read the full CPJ letter and we invite your comments

See a review of the workshop

Following the Legal Facilitation Session, organised by Global Conscience Initiative, held at Buea Central Prison on the 15^th January, I was left with a strong rancid taste of injustice.  A story of police brutality, a realisation that the police must also be policed, and justice must always be fought for.

As I sat in the crowded workshop, in a dusty store room of Buea Central Prison, I was struck with a surge of panic. Not due to the rusty gun perched behind me or the creaking roof that threatened to cave in every time someone sneezed. But because of the words and stories of the detainees, the simplicity of their crimes, the fact that they were no different from me. I could see myself, in another life, positions reversed. I could imagine myself chewed up and spat out by an impoverished society, one in which the rights of man are not universal, but available on purchase. Read more >>>

Brendan reported that he was “pleasantly surprised” to read from an official complaint to the Attorney General the State Counsel showed him that he, the chief prosecutor for Kumba, plans to prosecute “not one, but five warders, as well as the prison superintendent, Thierry Joel”.

An overwhelmed Brendan who has been working tooth and nail on the case for six months now can not contend his joy. Hear him:

“This is a really huge GCI victory that makes our hard work over the past few months well worth it. Regardless of the outcome of the case, this prosecution sets a precedent that official acts of torture will not be tolerated, at least in the Southwest Region, and demonstrates that small grassroots human rights NGOs such as GCI can really effect systemic change”.

GCI CEO has said GCI will continue to keep her fingers crossed hoping that Justice will at last be served the victims of the August 18, 2008 abuses in the Kumba prisons.

“The legal department has carried out their own independent investigation of the abuses and have corroborated our allegations,” CEO Samba Churchill said. “Justice will not only be seen to have been done but also served when the prison boss and his colleagues answer to the charges in court.”

Two of the released students, Mboh Tanyi and Atanga Marcelus, revisited the police station December 8, a day after their release, to collect their retained national identity cards but were shown a new complaint chanelled in through the office of the Attorney General for the Southwest Province and accusing them of being sympathisers of the “Yellow Party” in the University that is allegedly fomenting the ongoing violence on Campus. This new complaint now included the name of Bara’s name that was not on the first complaint about the “November 26 black thursday” violence.

Mboh Tanyi said police showed three new detention forms with their names. He was at the police at this time alone as Atanga had sneaked out allegedly to meet the State Counsel. Police later demanded from Tanyi the addresses of Bara Mark Bareta and Atanga Marcelus but Mboh said he did not know. Police asked him to invite them to the station by phone but they had not shown up at the time GCI left the police station.

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Security operatives in Buea, Southwest Region of Cameroon have yielded to pressure for human rights organisations and released three former executive members of the University’s student’s union (UBSU) it has been holding in incommunicado detention.

Police reportedly summoned the trio to their head office in Buea and questioned them with regards to the ongoing violence in the University and then put them behind bars. When a GCI staff visited the police station, she was denied access to the students and a police officer said they had firm instructions not to grant access to legal assistance to the students.

GCI found the arrest and detention, incommunicado, inconsistent with Cameroonian laws, and complained to the Senior State Counsel of Buea against the abuse of the students and of the law by the police, especially their boss. Read complaint.

Maxcelus Atanga, Bara Mark Bareta and Mboh Tanyi Mboh were released on Monday November 8, 2009 after spending five nights in the cold police cell.

It is worth noting that the Southwest Regional Office of the National Human Rights Commission had also petitioned the Senior State Counsel about the “victimization and persecution” of the students, calling on the State Prosecutor to cause their immediate and unconditional release.

Read full details of arrest and detention
Read statements from detained students
Read GCI plaint to Senior State Counsel