CPJ demands immediate release of jailed journalists

A Paris based NGO advocating journalists’ rights, Reporters Without Borders (CPJ) has strongly condemned what it says is ‘the muzzling of the press in Cameroon’, where three journalists are currently held on defamation charges, and called on the government to decriminalize media offences.

The latest of such detention was a sports reporter for Mboafootball.com website and Radio Sport Info Guy Nsigué, who was arrested on October 21 by men from the State Secretariat for Defense also known in French as SED.

However, Nsigué who was arrested and held by the gendarmerie for an article accusing the Head of the Cameroonian Football Federation's "normalization committee’ Joseph Owona, of embezzlement was released later after appearing before a prosecutor.

There other two were detained in jail. They are Zacharie Ndiomo, the editor of the bimonthly ‘Le Zénith’, who has been held by police since October 13 but was transferred on Tuesday to Yaoundé's Kondengui prison after appearing before a prosecutor and Amungwa Tanyi Nicodemus, the editor of ‘The Monitor’ a weekly newspaper who has been in a prison in the northwestern city of Bamenda since March 29.

Ndiomo was arrested as a result of a libel suit by Finance Ministry Chief of Staff, Urbain Ebang Mve over an article in Le Zénith's latest issue claiming that Mve was about to be jailed for illicit enrichment. Ndiomo's wife said she has not been allowed to visit him or give him his medicine since his transfer to Kodengui prison.

Nicodemus was sentenced to four months in prison and bailed 10 million CFA francs (15,000 euros) for damages on 10 March over a series of article in The Monitor about alleged corrupt practices at the Cameroon Co-operative Credit Union League. He is still detained because he cannot afford to pay the damages, which exceed the limit set by the penal code.

“These three cases highlighted the contradictions of a government that portrayed itself as democratic while imprisoning the Fourth Estate”, head of the Reporters Without Borders Africa desk, Cléa Kahn-Sriber said in a release.

“Detaining journalists for defamation violates not only their personal rights but also freedom of information in general, because it leads to self-censorship. We urge the authorities to free Nsigué, Ndiomo and Nicodemus without further delay”, he continued.

CPJ however maintained that these arrests and Nicodemus' conviction violates all of Cameroon's laws. Under article 305 of the penal code for instance, the maximum penalty for defamation is six months in prison and damages of 2 million CFA francs (3,000 euros).

Furthermore, under article 218 of the criminal procedure code, defendants who have a known address can be placed in pre-trial detention only if they are charged with a serious crime.

Ironically, Cameroon is to host a seminar on the decriminalization of media offences that is being organized in Yaoundé on October 29-30 by the Central African Union of Media and Communications Syndicates and Professionals (USYPAC). It must be recalled that Cameroon is ranked 131st out of 180 countries in the 2014 Reporters Without Borders press freedom Index.