2014 draft human rights report under scrutiny

A workshop to validate the report held yesterday at the Ministry of Justice in Yaounde.

The insurgency by the terrorist group, Boko Haram, in the Far North Region since 2013, has been accompanied by grave violations of human rights, which have brought Cameroon under the focus of the international community.

This new dispensation has motivated the introduction of a new chapter on “Human Rights and the Fight Against Terrorism” in the Justice Ministry’s 2014 draft report on the state of human rights in Cameroon in 2014. Stakeholders yesterday, June 3, 2015 began studying the document in Yaounde.

Opening the workshop to validate the blueprint, the Secretary General in the Ministry of Justice, Justice George Gwanmesia, said the new chapter was inspired by the December 23, 2014 law on the repression of acts of terrorism.

Given this context, he urged the participants who included human rights focal points from various ministries, senior staff of the Ministry of Justice as well as civil society actors, to engage in critical analyses as well as frank and constructive talk to complete or update information in the draft in order to make the 2014 report a showcase of the human rights situation in Cameroon.

Preceded by a preface and a general introduction, amongst others, the First Part of the draft report dwells on civil and political rights in five chapters.

The six chapters of Part Two treat economic, social and cultural rights while Part Three deals with transversal issues of human rights with a chapter on the protection of refugees. A general conclusion ends the report which if endorsed, will be the 10th published since 2005.