NCC to “protect” journalists barred by military tribunal

In their bid to play their role, the National Communication Council, NCC, says it is working to seek “protection” for two journalists and a journalism trainer whom a military tribunal barred from practicing and leaving the country a week ago.

“We are [also] supposed to protect the liberty of the journalist to perform their profession,” Peter Essoka, the vice president of the media regulator that has generated bad press of its own for suspending journalists and shutting new outlets, told the Standard Tribune on Tuesday.

He said NCC had written to the three journalists Félix Cyriaque Ebolé Bola of Mutations, Rodrigue Tongue of Le Messager and Baba Wame of the Yaounde University II’s school of journalism, ASMAC.

“We cannot interfere in the law court but if we have responses on the stand of our colleagues, we can build a case in which we would advise the government on what should happen,” Essoka said.

Reports said the journalists and lecturer had also been asked not to discuss the case outside the judicial process.

They were accused of withholding sensitive security information from authorities, under a little known provision of the penal code. One report said they might have obtained documents about the health of President Paul Biya, one of the country’s top secrets.

Neither the court nor the accused have spoken publicly about the exact nature and details of the accusations. A military court hearing on 28th October, which press freedom advocates have referred to as an interrogation, was closed to the public.

Committee to Protect Journalists, a media rights advocate, said it feared the case could have far reaching impact of the exercise of freedom of the press in Cameroon.

“This interrogation may deter journalists and their sources from sharing information relating to national security, hampering the flow of news,” said Peter Nkanga, CPJ’s West Africa representative.

The case has also infuriated the NCC, which is still establishing itself as the preferable avenue for thrashing media offenses.

“The military took their dispensation to arrest a few of us and one would ask what the communication council is doing,” complained Essoka.

He added that the military should have sent a complaint to the NCC, which would then give the journalists a chance to state their case before deciding the next move.

Even though it is taking up the journalists’ case, the NCC does not appear to expect to change their fate significantly.

“What we want to achieve is to protect those journalists,” Essoka said. “We cannot get them out of court but we can write to the government to look into their case and see how even the military can come back to us.”

The NCC has not reached out to the military, Essoka said, and it was unclear if the military tribunal fell under the organ’s jurisdiction.

“It is not my duty to contact the military,” the NCC chief said.

In its move, the NCC finds itself in an unusual situation. It has also come under fire for trampling media freedoms after a spate of decisions suspending journalists and temporally closing news media outlets.

“The measures we have taken against some professionals or news organs are not because we want to kill the profession,” he said in defense. “Most of the time we have summoned the professions to the council to dialogue with them.”