In Cameroon, Georges Mfor Tang is one case among others who must not be forgotten, according to Redhac, the Network of Human Rights Defenders in Central Africa. Arrested in 2017, he is serving a 25-year prison sentence for “terrorism”. Redhac’s lawyers appealed and are still waiting for his case to be re-examined by the courts
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Georges Mfor Tang was a member of the NGO Justice for All, active in the English-speaking South-West region when violence began between separatists and government forces almost seven years ago.
He spent six years in prison before being sentenced, on August 16, 2023, by the Yaoundé Military Court to twenty-five years of detention for “acts of terrorism, apology for acts of terrorism and hostility against the homeland”.
Maximilienne Ngo Mbe, executive director of Redhac, and winner of the International Female Courage Award awarded by the US Department of State, denounces in this case an “empty file”. “ He was accused of having been in contact with separatists just because he was doing his job as a human rights defender and reporting cases of human rights violations. However, when you do this kind of work, you can have contacts with armed groups, because that is the only way you can have fair and credible information. she explains on the microphoneAmélie Tuletfrom the Africa editorial team.
Le Redhac, and its partner Front Line Defendersdeplore the slowness of justice and the fact that Georges Mfor Tang is detained in Yaoundé, far from his family: he is currently in Kondengui central prison in the capital.
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More broadly, Redhac once again denounces the use of military justice to judge civilians. This was the case, among others, for Mancho Bibixy, presenter on a local radio station in Bamenda, in the other predominantly English-speaking region, that of the North-West. Arrested in 2017, he is currently serving a fifteen-year prison sentence for reasons including secession, revolution and insurrection. Sentence handed down on appeal by the Center Court of Appeal, for “acts of terrorism, hostility against the homeland, secession, revolution and insurrection”.
Redhac asks the Cameroonian government to have Parliament adopt the bill submitted to the Senate office since 2021, on the promotion and protection of human rights defenders in Cameroon, undermined according to Maximilienne Ngo Mbe since the 2014 law establishing repression of acts of terrorism.
On the side of the authorities, for the government, “justice has done its job and says what is right”.
Read alsoCameroon: civil society calls on the government on the human rights situation