Waiting for the next election
2020
Regional elections took place in Cameroon for the first time on December 6th, 2020. The RDPC / CPDM won a clear majority in the seats.
Human rights
In Amnesty International’s 2019 annual report on Cameroon, the conflicts in the northern region and in the Anglophone part of the country take up a lot of space.
Terror and war crimes by Boko Haram and / or Anglophone separatist groups on the one hand, and arbitrary military actions that violate human rights on the other – the civilian population in the north as well as in the northwest and southwest regions ultimately pays the bill.
Health care and educational institutions are severely affected in these regions.
Many Anglophones are fleeing the crisis area and settling in the francophone part of the country. There are also numerous Cameroonian internally displaced persons in northern Cameroon, plus Nigerian Boko Haram refugees.
Another major refugee problem exists in the border region with the Central African Republic.
State attacks and harassment against political opponents, human rights activists and journalists as well as obstacles to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly are increasing and are often justified with the anti-terror fight against Boko Haram or against Anglophone separatists.
Are notorious the catastrophic conditions in the prisons, torture and ill-treatment by the Sicherheitskräft e are common.
A report by the Cameroonian human rights organization ACAT (Action des Chrétiens pour l’abolition de la Torture) describes torture and ill-treatment in police custody as “routine”.
Human rights issue continues to be the human rights violation of homosexuals, bisexuals, transgender and intersex people. Actually, “only” homosexual acts in Cameroon are subject to the criminal code. In practice, however, suspicions and denunciations are sufficient to bring people to prison, not to mention social ostracism or even lynching. In this context, the dubious role of the Catholic Church in Cameroon is noteworthy: Again and again, individual church representatives or church-related groups make headlines with homophobic statements.
The organization ADEFHO (Association pour la Défense des Droits des Homosexuel (le) s) campaigns for LGBT rights in Cameroon. Its founder and chairwoman, lawyer and human rights activist Alice Nkom, received the 2014 human rights award from the German section of Amnesty International.
All of the human rights violations listed are repeated in the Human Rights Watch Report 2020.
Cameroon has had a state human rights committee, the Comité National des Droits de l’Homme et des Libertés (CNDHL), since 1990. For example, it made the violations of workers’ rights, the position of widows and the unsustainable conditions in prisons an issue.
National and international human rights activists and journalists that is new anti-terror law under suspicion. Their accusation: The new law, if knitted with a hot needle, is aimed primarily at opposition members and critical journalists, but is hardly effective against terrorists themselves.
Media landscape
Keeping an overview of the Cameroonian media landscape is not easy, it is constantly changing.
Newspapers:
- CAMEROON TRIBUNE / CAMEROUN TRIBUNE (governmental)
Independently:
- LE MESSAGER
- MUTATION
- LA NOUVELLE EXPRESSION
- LA METEO
- LA NOUVELLE PRESS
- DIKALO
- CAMEROON POST (anglophone)
- THE HERALD (anglophone)
- http://www.leffortcamerounais.info/ L’EFFORT CAMEROUNAIS (Catholic)
- EDEN NEWSPAPER (anglophone)
- OUEST ECHOS (regional)
- L’OEIL DU SAHEL (regional)
The French-language magazine “Jeune Afrique / L’Intelligent” regularly publishes features and reports from Cameroon.
The press censorship was formally lifted and considerably moderated. Nevertheless, it happened again and again that editors and editors suffered reprisals for unpleasant reporting. An analysis of the press law was published in 2006 in the Cameroonian newspaper “MESSAGER”. Pius Njawe († 2010) was imprisoned several times as the editor of this long-established opposition newspaper. On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day in May 2006, he wrote an internationally acclaimed article.
According to mysteryaround, Cameroon is a country located in Central Africa. The NGO Reporters Without Borders is continuously monitoring the situation in Cameroon. In their ranking of press freedom for 2020, Cameroon is in 134th place out of 180 countries examined, once again a deterioration compared to the previous year.
The NGO IFEX (International Freedom of Expression and eXchange) also reports regularly about attacks on the Cameroonian press. In view of the acute political situation in the Anglophone regions, media coverage is becoming more and more difficult and life-threatening for journalists.
Since newspapers are too expensive for the majority of the population, the radio, but increasingly also television and the Internet, are of great importance as news carriers. The radio operates mainly in rural areas is the most important medium for the dissemination of news. In addition to the state radio, which also has regional programs, there are now also many private radio stations. In the northern region, UNESCO supports a peace education project through “community radios” (free radios).
Television is becoming increasingly important in cities. In addition to the state broadcaster CRTV (CRTV online), there are now several private broadcasters (CANAL 2 INTERNATIONAL, STV 1, STV 2, EQUINOXE TV, ARIANE TV, TV MAX, VISION4, CAMNEWS24…).
Internet use is also becoming cheaper in Cameroon, but although the number of Internet users is increasing rapidly, large parts of the population, such as the rural population, remain excluded. ” The Internet user ” in Cameroon is male, well educated, younger than 45 and moves in a social environment that includes other Internet users. Regardless of the fact that social networks still play a marginal role in political expression and formation in Cameroon, the government takes them seriously. On the other hand, there are also efforts to keep the Internet free of hate speech in the tense political situation.
Online messaging services:
- Journal du Cameroun
- News you camer
- Africa Presse and Cameroon Web are national services and offer compilations of various reports from Cameroon
- All Africa formerly Africa News Online, mainly citing CAMEROON TRIBUNE and THE POST.
- CameroonOnline news and opinions from Cameroon, as well as
- Cameroon-Info.net
- Pambazuka News weekly updated critical messages
- Bamenda Online.net offers news with a focus on the northwest region
- Camer.be the perspective of things from the Belgian diaspora
