Cameroon has maintained its shameful record as one of the top jailers of journalists in Sub-Saharan Africa. Paul Biya’s country has been ranked third worst jailer of journalists in the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) 2024 annual report of imprisoned journalists released last week.
With five journalists behind bars as at December 1, 2024, Cameroon shared the third position ranking with Paul Kagame’s Rwanda where same number of journalists were incarcerated as at same time.
Cameroon occupied same position in last year’s ranking though with six journalists in detention in connection with their work at the time. Those currently in detention in the country are facing prison terms between 10 and 32 years, according to the report released on Thursday, January 16, 2025.
Thomas Awah Junior, Tsi Conrad, Mancho Bibixy and Kingsley Njoka are among the five journalists in detention in Cameroon. They were arrested in connection to the ongoing armed conflict in the English speaking regions of the country and accused of secession-related crimes.
The former Director General of the state broadcaster, Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV), Amadou Vamoulke is one of the longest-serving journalists incarcerated in the country, serving a 32-year jail term following two separate sentences.
Vamoulke was first sentenced to 12 years imprisonment in December 2022 when he had already spent six years in pre-trial detention following his arrest in 2016 on corruption-related charges. He was later sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in August 2024 for a similar offence increasing his sentence to 32 years.
(Photo by Jean Pierre Kepseu/Panapress / Maboup)
Vamoulke’s lawyer, barrister Alice Nkom had said though the official for her client’s arrest is embezzlement of public funds, she believes the arrest is linked to his work as a journalist.
“The official reason for his [Amadou Vamoulke’s] arrest is a pretext for trying to silence journalists in Cameroon … Amadou never accepted as black what he knew was white,” Nkom said when he client was first sentenced to 12 years in jail.
The CPJ 2024 annual report of journalists imprisoned globally disclosed that a total of 67 journalists were behind bars across the continent last year with most facing anti-state, criminal defamation and false news charges.
Albeit the grim situation, Cameroon trails behind Ethiopia with six journalists in jail and Sub-Saharan Africa’s worst jailer Eritrea with 16 journalists in detention.
Five of the six journalists in detention in Ethiopia, the report revealed could face a death penalty if convicted of terrorism, while the sixth has been detained without charges.
The report noted that those held in Eritrea include some of the longest-known cases of journalists imprisoned around the world saying officials have offered vague and inconsistent explanations for their arrests.
“Those held in Eritrea include some of the longest-known cases of journalists imprisoned around the world; no charges against them have ever been disclosed,” CPJ said in the report.
The census notes that Nigeria is using a cybercrimes law to prosecute its four imprisoned journalists for their reporting on alleged corruption. It said same of Rwanda.
Globally, there were at least 361 journalists incarcerated on December 1, 2024 – an increase of more than 100 new jailings from the previous year. China, Israel, and Myanmar emerged as the world’s three worst offenders with 50, 43 and 35 journalists respectively behind bars. Belarus and Russia rounded out the top five with 31 and 30 incarcerated journalists respectively.
“These numbers should be a wake-up call for us all,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “A rise in attacks on journalists almost always precedes a rise in attacks on other freedoms – the freedom to give and receive information, the freedom to assemble and move freely, the freedom to protest.”
