FRIDAY 26 JULY AT 15.00
Violation of Human Rights in Cameroun! What is the reaction of the European Union?
Since the very beginning of Boko Haram attacks in Cameroon in 2014, efforts have been made nationally and internationally to fight against its.
The Cameroonian government’s management of internal crises is quite a different story. As Victor Ndikum, an Anglophone Cameroonian activist, stated, the demands in Cameroon Anglophone regions since 2016 are permanently and violently repressed by security forces. At the same time most civil society actors are arrested and imprisoned, meetings and demonstrations banned.
Fokou Kingue, secretary of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM) in Belgium, presented the recurring restrictions of the CRM since its creation in 2012. This repression became more violent when Maurice Kamto started claiming his victory after the presidential elections of October 7, 2018. He as well as nearly 200 political supporters were arrested and jailed. There are still more than 160 in prison, the major part being detained for more than 6 months.
It is in this context that the Cameroonian diaspora has organized itself to play a significant role in the search for a solution for the appeasement and resolution of conflicts by creating spaces for free expression as well as protest movements.
Regarding the trial of civilians by the military court, Professor Klein, Professor of International Law at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, recalled its prohibition and the possibility to call on the United Nations Human Rights Committee to act when domestic judicial appeals are exhausted by demonstrating the inefficacy of the local judicial system and/or showing the systematic distortion of domestic procedures.
The European Union is one of the economic partners of Cameroon. It has financed various cooperation projects worth more than 540 million euros between 2008 and 2020 for issues including respect for Human Rights and good governance. ALRDH considers it is therefore legitimate for the European Parliament, based on serious humanitarian and security issues in Cameroon, to make recommendations on good governance to its partner. ALRDH recommends the European Union should consider sanctions, especially financial ones, should the Cameroonian government keeps ignoring the European Parliament recommendations.
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