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New York, September 9,
2011--Authorities in Cameroon have
detained a journalist since Monday, pressing him to reveal the sources for a
story detailing alleged corruption
by a tax official, local journalists and news
reports said.
Committee to Protect Journalists
Cameroon
2011
In "A Journalist in Exile," Cameroonian reporter Agnès Tailè talks about the challenges she faces after leaving her home for the United States. Tailè tells CPJ's Sheryl A. Mendez how she was abducted, beaten, and threatened in connection with her critical reporting about social issues and armed conflict. (3:41)
Read our accompanying special report, "Journalists in Exile 2011," and visit our Journalist Assistance program to see how you can help.
I was arbitrary and unlawfully arrested and detained in a heavily secured military police detention facility in Cameroon for 40 days. I had to bribe my way out of the country to seek sanctuary and protection.
Cameroon is a dictatorship dressed up as a fake democracy, with a leader in power for more than 29 years. As an investigative economics and current affairs journalist, I worked with the leading independent newspaper, Le Messager, and also with other newspapers before that. I wrote critical articles about the government and exposed its wrongdoing and corruption.
New York, April 1, 2011--Using a vague criminal code provision allowing authorities to detain individuals deemed a threat to public order, a provincial governor in Cameroon threw a journalist in prison on Wednesday for inquiring about the arrests of two employees of a state-run palm oil company, according to local journalists.
Journalists: Beware of questioning the performance of Cameroonian international soccer superstar Samuel Eto'o on the field. The act could result in a head butt--as reporter Philippe Boney experienced in 2008--or in rough words, as a Senegalese reporter experienced in a postgame press conference on Saturday.
New York, March 28, 2011--Authorities in Cameroon must end judicial harassment of journalists reporting on public corruption, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today after a court handed an editor a suspended prison sentence and banned his newspaper for reporting on alleged mismanagement of a transportation company.
New York, March 22, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the prosecution of a journalist in Cameroon over coverage of a labor dispute at a transportation company. A public prosecutor in the commercial city of Douala charged Editor Jean-Marie Tchatchouang of the weekly Paroles with criminal defamation on February 4, the journalist told CPJ.
"For security reasons, the government of Cameroon requests the suspension of the Twitter sms integration on the network," announced a March 8 tweet by Bouba Kaélé, marketing manager of the Cameroon unit of South Africa-based telecommunications provider MTN. The announcement has since disappeared from Kaélé's Twitter feed, but was memorialized by a handful of Twitter users who retweeted the comment and the Cameroonian daily Le Jour, which printed a story.
New York, March 3, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned for the safety of a Cameroonian editor who is being prosecuted in connection with a leaked official document, according to local journalists and news reports.
New York, February 25, 2011--Cameroon's government is obstructing journalists from reporting on issues of public interest, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Security forces detained a journalist without charge for six days after he interviewed a jailed former official. They also seized footage from reporters covering the brutal repression of a banned opposition march on Wednesday.
Attacks on the Press
| Angola, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe
Across Continent, Governments Criminalize
Investigative Reporting
By Mohamed Keita
Across the continent, the emergence of in-depth reporting and the absence of effective access-to-information laws have set a collision course in which public officials, intent on shielding their activities, are moving aggressively to unmask confidential sources, criminalize the possession of government documents, and retaliate against probing journalists. From Cameroon to Kenya, South Africa to Senegal, government reprisals have resulted in imprisonments, violence, threats, and legal harassment. At least two suspicious deaths--one involving an editor, the other a confidential source--have been reported in the midst of government reprisals against probing news coverage.
• Authorities unleash reprisals when journalists question oil company deal.
• Nation mourns the death of pioneering journalist Pius Njawé.
4: Journalists jailed for leaked document. One dies in custody, a second alleges he was tortured.
When four newspaper journalists jointly sent questions to a top presidential adviser in late 2009, they hoped to learn more about alleged misuse of state oil company funds. Instead, they set off virulent government reprisals beginning in February that left one editor dead, another alleging he was tortured in state custody, and two others imprisoned for nine months. The case, the worst press freedom abuse in Cameroon in at least a decade, highlighted the brutal intimidation meted out by powerful public figures against journalists scrutinizing their activities.
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