Reporters Without Borders renews call to government

The Non-government Organization invites the Cameroon authorities to stop all enforcement action against Flash Ndiomo Rodrigue Tongue, Félix Cyriaque Ebole Bola and Baba Wame.

In a public release yesterday, December 7, the NGO Reporters Without Borders (Rsf) renews its call to the Government of Cameroon to put an end to all lawsuits against media men. "This is really an example of abuse by Cameroonian authorities against journalists ... We really feel the scenario is quite grotesque but is also, unfortunately, extremely worrying," accuses Clea Kahn Sriber, responsible for Rsf Africa.

She explained: "The fact that journalists are summoned before a military tribunal, not only to reveal their sources, but to have ultimately been professional and have called on the authorities to check information. And then they (the Cameroonian authorities) turn against them ...? "

Indeed, on 28 October morning, Felix Cyriaque Ebole Bola and Rodrigue Tongue respectively journalists for daily Mutations and The Messager, and Baba Wame, a teacher at Esstic (Graduate School of Science and Technology Information and Communication) appeared before the military court in Yaoundé.

After the hearing, they are charged with "failure to report" facts likely to breach the state security. "This indictment is very worrying for the freedom of information in Cameroon. Journalists do not have to be employees of state security agents," then protested Clea Kahn-Sriber. Before concluding: "Instead, they must maintain their independence vis-à-vis the authorities if they want to continue to work. Asking them to turn into informants of the authorities is to kill the essence of the journalistic profession. We ask the military court to drop the charges against the journalists."

In addition to the record of three journalists prosecuted before the military judge, Rsf follows other cases. Responsible Africa says: "This trial is in addition to detention for several months now, two journalists who are imprisoned for offenses related to libel, including (Flash Ndiomo, editor of the Weekly Zenith, who was arrested on October 13, following a libel suit filed by Urban Ebang Mve, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Finance), who is in prison for nine months."

Clea Kahn-Sriber said: "The imprisonment of a journalist for defamation interferes not only with their rights but also to freedom of information in general, because of self-censorship that such measures lead. We call on the Cameroonian authorities to release without delay Ndiomo Zechariah."