The Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakary held a press conference on Monday, December 8 in Yaounde to clarify issues arising against the new law on terrorism passed by parliament.
Below is the full statement of the press conference:
"Minister of State, Minister of Justice,
Mr. Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice,
Mr. Secretary General of the Ministry of Communication,
Mr. Inspector General of the Department of Communication,
Gentlemen managers and experts from the Ministry of Justice,
Gentlemen advisers
Lady and Gentlemen inspectors
Madam, Distinguished directors and heads of divisions,
Dear collaborators, dear colleagues,
Dear journalists,
Dear Guests,
Since the adoption a few days ago by the Parliament of the Law on the Suppression of Acts of terrorism in our country, the political institutions of Cameroon are put on the spot by a section of the political class and some representatives of the national civil society, both strongly relayed in the crusade by some media probably under their ideological control, economic and editorial, so therefore clearly gained to their cause.
These actors and working to give the opinion that the Government, at the highest state level, the President of the Republic, His Excellency Paul Biya, decided at the turn of this legislation to muzzle all of the Cameroonian political class that would be hostile to them, and some even prepared the bed of a succession without asperities to the head of state.
These manipulators agreed in such a scheme to structure the collective consciousness of the entire people of Cameroon on the idea that the enactment of this legislation would be a decline of democracy and a return to autocracy, expecting thereby, a rejection by the population and a protest perhaps even violent.
Given the gravity of such a plan, and the risk of misinformation sustainable to be able to create a public opinion, I invited you, ladies and gentlemen of the press for this sincere exchange, direct but cordial, to bring you all the truth, and the understanding you need.
But before getting into the thick of things, let me first of all, salute the presence on my side of Minister of State, Minister of Justice, who kindly took his time that we know precious to join us during this exchange.
Minister of State, you are welcome here at the Ministry of Communication.
Dear journalists,
I said earlier, the two chambers of our Parliament therefore adopted the draft law on the suppression of acts of terrorism, which was submitted to them in accordance with the Constitution of our country, the President of the Republic, Chief Executive, the Head of State.
This bill followed in both Houses of Parliament all the procedures required by their respective rules of procedure, from the Conference of Presidents, the exam Commissions, plenary discussions until adoption.
All of our elected legitimate representatives of the people of Cameroon, brought their voices to the deliberations that led to the passage of this bill.
But before scarcely completing these phases of the process, other voices, pleading legitimacy they derived from who knows where, to rebuke all the work done by elected officials, to whom the people of Cameroon entrusted the regal prerogative of voting laws of the Republic.
Trampling on the Republican duty that applies to everyone, having to respect the constitutional prerogatives to the exercise of political power by the institutions that the people of Cameroon have freely provided through an elective process, self-appointed attorneys, chose to misrepresent the facts and to blacklist these institutions, starting with the president of the Republic.
They then said to anyone who will hear that this law is beyond the will of our country to have a legal basis to protect our citizens and all who live within our borders the dreaded scourge of terrorism, that this is really just a clever under cover trick, to stifle and crush any hint of popular protest, the sole purpose of preparing an undisputed succession to the state's leadership; the method then consisting of the silencing of the press, the all-out militarization of justice, in a word the decline of the rule of law.
Dear journalists,
I would like to state here categorically that this relation of facts is no relation to reality, and that, moreover, the personality of its authors wish to indicate that such output in the public space could then result only from a hidden political agenda, but perfectly oiled.
I shall now therefore make you the judge of the bill passed by Parliament a few days ago. And to do that, let me first quote section 2 of the draft law about this distasteful polemic that article defines terrorism and provides for penalties when such acts are committed by any person whether of Cameroonian or foreign nationality.
So I quote:
"Article 2, paragraph 1: is punishable by the death penalty, who, personally, in complicity or co-share, commits any act or threatened act likely to cause death, endangering the physical, to cause damage or injury, damage to natural resources, environmental or cultural heritage with the intention
a) intimidate the population, cause in fear or coerce the victim, the government and / or organization, national or international, to do or to abstain from doing any act, to adopt or abandon a particular position or to act according to certain principles;
b) disrupt the normal functioning of public services, the provision of essential services to the public or to create a crisis within populations;
c) create general insurrection in the country;
Paragraph 2 is punishable by the death penalty, whatever, to achieve the same objectives as specified in paragraph 1 above:
a) Provide and / or use of weapons and war material;
b) Provide and / or uses microorganisms or other biological agents, including viruses, fungi or toxins;
c) Provide and / or uses chemical agents, psychotropic, radioactive or mesmerizing;
d) Takes a hostage.
Paragraph 3: the sentence of life imprisonment where the foreseeable consequences of the acts referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 above are animal disease or destruction of plants," end quote.
As you can easily see from reading this provision, our destroyers and other prosecutors on Sunday were caught lying and attempting misinformation. Contrary to the claims they utter, the act of terrorism is clearly defined in the bill.
It proceeds from a series of separate infringements of the Penal Code which dates it to 1967 and are punished as such the death penalty. These offenses will then become constitutive acts of terrorism in cases of wrongful intent planned and defined in specific cases.
I will mention some of them, without being exhaustive: offenses relating to breaches of state security in the event of hostility to the country (Article 102 of the Criminal Code I understand), collusion with a foreign power in the purpose of harming the interests of the country or betray (Article 103), incitement to civil war by arming or pushing people to arm themselves against each other (Article 112), band looting in time of war (Article 236), murder (Article 276), aggravated robbery with violence resulting in the death of another person or serious injury (320), kidnapping of a minor with fraud or violence when death The result of the minor (Article 354); and I prefer to stop there this list that I have done for illustrative purposes only.
Moreover, it must be remembered, and to get our detractors of the memorial impasse that seems to inhabit them, the legal and practical meaning of terrorism under the influence of the famous 1962 orders against subversion had assimilated to acts of terrorism, the involvement of nationalist movements of the time, out of the Cameroon colonial rule.
So down against the truths uttered here and there these days, that is the definition of the act of terrorism enshrined in the bill, it steps out of the political field as a way of ideological expression Viaticum and the conquest of power in a context of democracy and the rule of law.
There is therefore, by this evolution, rather a de-politicization of the act of terrorism, and conversely, at any time, a terrorist semantization of the political act.
That Dear journalists, where lies the first finding of flagrant offense of impaired truth and attempted manipulation of public opinion through the media campaign orchestrated by the enemies of democracy.
They also accused the government of having made the return of all the advanced achievements and other laws on liberties taken in the early 90s.
So I ask the question: which of these laws passed in 1990 had allowed the practice of terrorism? The law on freedom of association, the law on meetings and public events, the law on political pluralism or that relating to freedom of the press.
And I ask another: Will it in the bill that was just passed in the suppression of terrorist acts, any provision challenging the freedoms established in 1990? If so, be told that.
Another misleading claim so.
One also says that it is under the guise of this legislation, an act of political opportunism to prepare timelines that only our time censors see this in their minds.
We are again required to refresh their memory. Because, maybe they do not know, or so they pretend not to know it, it's been over a decade that the CEMAC-UMAC Regulation on Prevention and Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism in Central Africa signed by Cameroon, made acts of terrorism, an integral part of Cameroonian positive law.
This same international instrument asked-States parties, notwithstanding the incorporation of the fight against terrorism in their internal positive rights to enact national legislation in line with the commitments made by those States at the subregional level.
I said that the adoption of this bill is in the range of a general program of internalization of international instruments which Cameroon is a state party.
Other texts, apart from the one that the headlines today, had already been the object of this internalisation including during the current session of both Houses of Parliament. We have this moment heard any jérémiade and no curse from those who are agitated today.
Other texts from various fields will follow in the future at the next sessions of Parliament.
And it is precisely in this context that Parliament has authorized the Head of State to ratify the 1999 OAU Convention on the Prevention and fight against terrorism, which engages Convention among others States parties to, quote: "... Establish the crime of terrorist acts," end quote.
It is the same with its Protocol which, in turn, invited the States parties to, among others, I quote again: "Take all necessary measures to protect the human rights of their populations against all acts of terrorism and prevent entry and formation of terrorist groups in their territories, "end quote.
When we add to this the 2178 resolution of 24 September 2014 of the UN Security Council calling upon States, I quote: "To ensure that the qualification of criminal offenses in their legislation and internal regulations allow (...) prosecute and punish terrorist acts ", end quote, we more readily grasped the hollowness of the arguments that are served the public by these unrepentant preachers.
At the memorial impasse that we mentioned earlier on their part regarding the meaning of terrorism under the influence of the 1962 orders, also seems to add blindness and maybe even a probable symptomatic deafness aphasia.
I invite them to look at the realities around us to see, hear and understand how the major powers of the world have responded every time they face legal views of the terrorist threat.
I will first take the case of the United States, considered the birthplace of the world in terms of Liberties and Human Rights.
A month and a half after the September 11 attacks, Congress passed the almost unanimous "USA Patriot Act" emergency law that had created the particular status of "enemy combatant" and "illegal combatant" and which allowed the Bush administration to ignore habeas corpus, to detain without charge, people suspected of terrorist acts. The inmates of the famous prison in Guantanamo were all incarcerated under this legal status.
France, to address the phenomenon of recruitment and training of French citizens by jihadist movements abroad, the Parliament voted last November, a law strengthening the provisions on the fight against terrorism.
Under this legislation, and I quote: "All French may be banned on leaving the country, where there are serious reasons for considering that they plan to travel abroad for the purpose participation in terrorist activities or in a stronghold of terrorist groups in conditions that could lead to the undermining of public safety upon return on French territory, "end quote.
Knowing the importance of freedom of movement in a country like France where the rest of the death penalty was abolished, we can take the measure of the importance of the response to terrorism in this country.
French legislation has strengthened the repressive provisions of the Penal Code against persons causing acts of terrorism. Thus, the fact of causing direct acts of terrorism or to publicly condoning such acts is punishable by five years imprisonment and nearly 50 million CFA francs fine.
These penalties are increased to seven years in prison and about 65 million CFA francs fine when the offense was committed using a public online communication service.
About the severity of punishments for acts of terrorism promoted by the current legislation in Cameroon, there would simply be question to the fact of whether the lives of those who hold that of many innocent people, would be more appropriate to preserve against those of the innocent dead by the will and self-centered fundamentalists.
It is a fact that the death penalty has not been abolished in Cameroon and that numerous offenses, including those existing outside terrorist acts remain punishable by the death penalty in our country.
Why should terrorists' lives be preserved, while their consequences go beyond those of other offenses by the fact that in addition to murder of the innocent, or threatening of the whole social substratum of the State, such actions threaten the fundamental values ??of the nation: peace, unity, stability and national solidarity?
No Cameroonians loving these values ??should fear the effects of such legislation, as harsh as it is, if it is taken to suppress pests and also acts as destructive acts of terrorism.
Unless those who today are agitated to fight this legal instrument yet designed to secure people and property throughout the national territory, in strict compliance with the laws of the Republic, unless they, I say, do not feel threatened already in occult purposes they hatched whuch they would be the only ones to know the agenda and outcomes.
But what they need to know is that in the seditious and macabre business they would be trying to polish in the shade, they will always find the Cameroonian people on their way to their failure.
Some of them, out of wood, are already calling for a popular uprising they dream of since the beginning of time.
But Cameroonians are neither naive nor fools, and even less amnesia. They know these apostles of the policy of scorched earth, these entrepreneurs of chaos, who have always used the same modus operandi to try to violate their conscience, exploit their sovereignty and drag them into the abyss of destruction and forfeiture.
They never will therefore follow them in this demonic way.
The state has a duty to protect the most appropriate way against the terrorist threat that already showed its face upon us. It is the duty of any state law to provide the legal basis on which the repression of socially wrongdoing should be based.
The State must at all times and in all places, ensure that the corporate interest is protected by appropriate legislative, always guaranteed and is never injured.
And that is what is used in this case the bill to punish acts of terrorism.
As for the accusations stating the militarization of our Justice, due to the devolution of acts of terrorism in military court, I would make the following points:
1- The military court is not a special court. The military court is a special court jurisdiction, that is to say, it is qualified to deal with certain offenses according to their nature, according to their authors, or because of circumstances in committing of the offenses.
Thus, the Military Court deals, including:
- Violations of the arms legislation;
- Offenses committed with firearms;
- All related offenses to those I have just mentioned.
2. Acts of terrorism manifested in violence, flights, hostage abductions, murders, killings sometimes band and using weapons of war, with the defense Weapons using firearms, weapons used in breach of the legislation.
It is in the interests of consistency of our legislation, the bill retained the jurisdiction of the Military Tribunal for the Suppression of Terrorism. For who but a military judge or other officer acting in the course of a military court could investigate on the typology of weapons.
3. It is important to know that the entire procedure before the military court for acts of terrorism under the general law, and that the decisions of this body may be appealed to the Court of Appeal and to appeal to the Supreme Court, which will serve as civil magistrates of the judiciary.
4- It is also important to remember, so that no one is unaware that civil magistrates officiate in military courts and the military judges are officers of the defense forces, graduates of the "Judiciary" section of National School of Administration and Magistracy.
5- I add that, as in all criminal cases, the presence of a defense lawyer is mandatory in trials of this nature before the Military Tribunal. If the accused does not elect a board, the president of the court will assign an office and the fees are paid by the state.
As you can see, the legislator, entrusting the suppression of terrorism to military courts, would rather ensure the guarantees of a fair trial before the courts better equipped to assess the facts, the offending behavior and especially means used, while ensuring the rights of defense and reducing ultimately the risk of miscarriages of justice.
Dear journalists,
Some are also trying to make you believe that the proposed text for the suppression of acts of terrorism is really intended to reduce freedom of the press and placed under tight control of the Administration over editorial versions of your content.
So I ask another question: does the media become a viable also ignoble goal than terrorism? The answer of course, and you know it is not.
What is meant here is the repression of condoning terrorism by the media, since the apology is that any speech or position of a paper intends to praise a person, idea or a doctrine.
I will remind you about France, a country with which we can make the process of draconian nation an apology for "crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity or crimes and offenses of aiding the enemy" committed by the press, has always been heavily repressed, especially the law of 29 July 1881 on the freedom of the press.
Dear journalists,
I ask you what all of the national community expects of the Cameroonian press, that is to say, yours is to bring your civic contribution to the fight that our entire nation, your nation, leads against the terrorist threat.
This fight, the President of the Republic, His Excellency Paul Biya, has committed the people of Cameroon, which gave it the burden of its sovereignty.
Every time you will lend a hand, as you have also managed to do so far - and I sincerely congratulate you - know that you are doing it on behalf of the people of Cameroon, which you have a duty to serve the interest to the extent that you are a Cameroonian citizenship press service for the collective welfare of the Cameroonian nation.
I therefore appeal to the still greater attention of all our citizens, faced with these blended threats, polyforms and always mutant, which are run by enemies with faces sometimes the most unexpected, against stability, social cohesion, unity and prosperity of our dear and brave nation.
We are under no doubt for the ability of Cameroonians to expose these impostors and remain permanently mobilized behind the President of the Republic, His Excellency Paul Biya, in defense of our collective interests and to promote the present and future well-being of our country.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the details of the message that I intended to send you as part of our present exchange.
Thank you for your kind attention.
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