In Cameroon, journalists summoned to the State Secretariat for Defense (SED), after a complaint for defamation in the Martinez Zogo case. They are Boney Philippe, director of Vision 4 television, already auditioned last Wednesday by the investigators, and Jean Bruno Tagne of Naija TV (read Naīa TV) who was expected for his audition on Monday. The complainant, Paul Daisy Bia, a journalist also accuses them of disseminating incriminating and defamatory information against him.
With our correspondent in Cameroon, Polycarp Essomba
The case goes back a little over a month. On Naija TV, of which he is the promoter, Jean Bruno Tagne broadcasts an audio tape of nearly fifty minutes attributed to the Orthodox priest Jean-Jacques Ola Bébé, also a radio columnist in Yde.
In it, the priest, now deceased, evokes various scenarios on the circumstances and the possible sponsors of the assassination of Martinez Zogo. Names are cited, including abundantly that of journalist Paul Daisy Bia, as having been able to play a role in the disastrous fate of the former director of Amplitude FM.
After broadcasting this audio, Paul Daisy Bia, who considers himself unjustly defamed, will file a complaint, not without having tried to exercise, without success, he says, a right of reply to vision4, belonging to Jean Pierre Amougou Belinga and who had used the soundtrack in one of its programs.
This is how he resolved to lodge a complaint with the State Secretariat for Defense (SED) against the authors of the broadcast of this audio and those who had made comments that he considered defamatory.
Five people were therefore summoned to the SED, including journalists Jean Bruno Tagne and Boney Philippe, director of vision4. The first was heard last Wednesday on the reasons for the exploitation of this tape and on its authenticity. Jean Bruno Tagne, meanwhile, is expected on Monday.
Summonses that certain organizations for the defense of human rights and freedoms such as Redhac and Nouveau Droit de l’homme do not understand, which, in a joint press release, expressed concern about the persistence of intimidation and muzzling maneuvers against journalists, who constitute so many obstacles to freedom of expression and information