The following information is based on the Amnesty International Report 2022/23. This report documented the human rights situation in 149 countries in 2022, as well as providing global and regional analysis. It presents Amnesty International’s concerns and calls for action to governments and others.
Freedoms of expression, association and assembly were still restricted. Dozens of opposition party supporters and anglophone leaders remained arbitrarily detained. In the Northwest and Southwest regions, separatist groups committed serious crimes and the army committed human rights violations. In the Far North region, armed groups continued to carry out deadly raids on villages. Humanitarian access was hampered.
Armed violence between the army and armed separatist groups continued in the Northwest and Southwest anglophone regions. The armed conflict in the Far North region continued to rage with the active presence of the armed groups Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa Province. In May, inhabitants of Tourou in Mayo-Tsanaga department held a demonstration at the sub-prefecture of Mokolo to denounce the insecurity and demand more protection from the authorities.
As of 30 November, 385,000 people were internally displaced because of the armed conflict in the Far North, and as of December, more than 620,000 people were internally displaced because of the armed violence in the Southwest and Northwest, and 87,000 were refugees in Nigeria.
Human rights defenders and activists from several organizations were targeted with death threats, harassment and intimidation for exposing human rights violations and abuses in the two anglophone regions.1 On 22 April, four UN Special Rapporteurs focusing on human rights defenders, extrajudicial executions, the right to freedom of expression and the right to association wrote to President Paul Biya raising concerns over repeated death threats since 2015 against the president and the lawyer of the NGO Organic Farming for Gorillas (OFFGO). OFFGO had exposed abuses by businesses in the Northwest region.
On 27, 28 and 30 June, peaceful protests organized by visually impaired people were violently dispersed by the police in the capital Yaoundé, according to reports from the Collectif des Aveugles et Malvoyants Indignés du Cameroun and the media. Twenty-seven demonstrators were locked up for several hours in Yaoundé’s central police station before being released. Others were beaten, insulted, loaded onto vehicles and abandoned in various places far from the center of Yaoundé.
On 1 August, Mohamadou Bouba Sarki, president of the Confédération des associations des jeunes solidaires du Cameroun, was arrested in Garoua city, North region, by police officers and gendarmes and detained for one night. He had tried to organize a peaceful march to demand the release of several detainees.
Mancho Bibixy Tse and Tsi Conrad, protest leaders from the Northwest and Southwest anglophone regions and arrested for taking part in peaceful protests in 2016 and 2017, were still arbitrarily detained after being sentenced by a military court in Yaoundé to 15 years in prison, following their conviction for “acts of terrorism, secession, spreading false information, and contempt for public bodies and officials”. In 2019 and 2021 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called for the release of the two men.
As of December, at least 62 Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC) members and supporters remained in arbitrary detention in Yaoundé and Douala after they were sentenced by military courts for attempted revolution, rebellion, aggravated assembly or participation in the organization of an undeclared public meeting, in relation to their activism or their participation in banned protests in September 2020.2 Among them were Olivier Bibou Nissack, the spokesperson for MRC leader Maurice Kamto, and Alain Fogué Tedom, national treasurer of the MRC, both sentenced to seven years in prison, and Dorgelesse Nguessan, sentenced to five years for having participated in a protest.
Former director of the public broadcaster Cameroon Radio and Television (CRTV), Amadou Vamoulké, whose pretrial detention for six years had been considered arbitrary by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, was sentenced on 20 December to 12 years in prison, after more than 130 adjournments.
While a report by the Ministry of Public Health recorded almost 15,000 notified cases of cholera and 298 deaths in several regions, the New Bell prison in Douala was affected by two cholera epidemics. In the first outbreak starting in February, at least six inmates at the prison died of cholera. One of them, Rodrigue Ndagueho Koufet, who died on 7 April, had been arbitrarily detained since September 2020 for having participated in a peaceful protest. According to non-governmental media, the second outbreak from August onwards caused the deaths of at least 10 prisoners. The prison administration carried out disinfection and reinforced existing hygiene measures. The regional health delegation for the Littoral region provided vaccines and supported the care of patients evacuated to public hospitals.
The Ministry of Defence acknowledged on 7 June that the Cameroonian army killed nine people on the evening of 1 June in the town of Missong, Menchum department, Northwest region, “in an inappropriate reaction, inadequate to the circumstances and clearly disproportionate to the refusal of the hostile villagers to cooperate”.
Separatist groups committed serious crimes in the Northwest and Southwest regions, targeting people, healthcare facilities and schools, which did not receive adequate protection from the authorities. On 8 and 11 February, these groups burned down Molyko primary school in Buea and Queen of Rosary Catholic college in Mamfe, both in Southwest region.
On 26 February, a nurse from a medical NGO was killed and two other medical staff injured when their car was shot at by a separatist group at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Bamenda, Northwest region.
On 13 April, the government reported the killing of the Northwest regional prison delegate and three of his staff in an attack on their vehicle on 12 April.
According to reports by OCHA, 13 students and three teachers were abducted in four separate incidents and released after payment of a ransom. On 4 and 6 April, two schools in Buea SUFFERED ARSON ATTACKS BY UNKNOWN ARMED MEN.
Armed groups continued to carry out deadly raids on villages, killing and abducting dozens of civilians. The Mada hospital in Logone-et-Chari department was forced to close for several months – preventing thousands of people from accessing health services – after an attack on 2 July that killed two civilians.
On 5 April, Doctors Without Borders (DWB) announced the suspension of all medical activities in the Southwest region after four of their colleagues were arrested and detained after being “investigated for complicity with secessionism simply for carrying out their medical duties”, according to DWB. Humanitarian operations were suspended from 15 to 21 May in the Northwest and Southwest regions after armed separatist groups called for lockdowns.
We at Amnesty International USA, Cameroon Advocacy Network, Haitian Bridge Alliance, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, and UndocuBlack Network, welcome the Department of Homeland Security’s designation of Ukraine for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) This is a critical move to ensure that the estimated 75,000 nationals from Ukraine are free from the fear of being returned to the human rights catastrophe brought upon by Russia’s invasion.
Hundreds of people in Cameroon accused of supporting Boko Haram, often without evidence, are being brutally tortured by security forces, Amnesty International said in a new report published today.
More than 1,000 people, many arrested arbitrarily, are being held in horrific conditions and dozens are dying from disease and malnutrition or have been tortured to death, as part of the Cameroonian government and security forces crackdown on Boko Haram, Amnesty International revealed in a new report published today.
More than 1,000 people, many arrested arbitrarily, are being held in horrific conditions and dozens are dying from disease and malnutrition or have been tortured to death, as part of the Cameroonian government and security forces crackdown on Boko Haram, Amnesty International revealed in a new report published today.
International protection of human rights is in danger of unravelling as short-term national self-interest and draconian security crackdowns have led to a wholesale assault on basic freedoms and rights, warned Amnesty International as it launched its annual assessment of human rights around the world. “Your rights are in jeopardy: they are being treated with utter contempt by many governments around the world,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
Boko Haram has slaughtered nearly 400 civilians in northern Cameroon, while a heavy-handed response by security forces and inhumane prison conditions have led to dozens more deaths, Amnesty International said in a report launched today.
This has been a devastating year for those seeking to stand up for human rights and for those caught up in the suffering of war zones. Governments pay lip service to the importance of protecting civilians. And yet the world's politicians have miserably failed to protect those in greatest need. Amnesty International believes that this can and must finally change.
This report provides an analysis of the legal environment and wider context of human rights violations against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) individuals in sub-Saharan Africa. Recent years have seen increasing reports of people being harassed, marginalized, discriminated against and attacked because of their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.
REPUBLIC OF CAMEROON Head of state Paul Biya Head of government Philémon Yang As in previous years, the authorities continued to restrict the activities of political opponents and journalists. People …
Head of state: Paul Biya Head of government: Philémon Yang Death penalty: abolitionist in practice Population: 20 million Life expectancy: 51.7 years Under-5 mortality (m/f): 151/136 per 1,000 Adult literacy: …