(RSF/IFEX) – On 26 April 2005, a court sentenced two journalists from the regional weekly “L’Oeil du Sahel” to five months in prison with no parole and a fine of five million CFA francs (approx. US$9,800; 7,600 euros) for defamation. RSF expressed concern over the continuing practice of jailing journalists in Cameroon for press offences. […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 26 April 2005, a court sentenced two journalists from the regional weekly “L’Oeil du Sahel” to five months in prison with no parole and a fine of five million CFA francs (approx. US$9,800; 7,600 euros) for defamation.
RSF expressed concern over the continuing practice of jailing journalists in Cameroon for press offences. “Exposing serious abuses in an article does not constitute a crime, even in Cameroon,” the organisation said.
Guibaï Gatama, the editor of “L’Oeil du Sahel”, and his colleague Abdoulaye Oumaté were sentenced in absentia by a court in Maroua on 26 April. They had exposed “abuses and extortion practised on the people by the security forces” in an article that appeared in January, entitled, “Fotokol: the Gendarmes Block the Road”. Neither journalist attended the hearing, for fear of arrest, and one of them is believed to have fled the country.
In his article, Oumaté condemned “the mafia gendarmes of the Fotokol brigade who, on the pretext of fighting ‘road block gangs’, roam the region robbing citizens.” A defamation complaint was subsequently filed by the captain of the brigade.
RSF also regretted that the court administration was not doing more to recover the court file, which mysteriously disappeared from the court clerk’s office, preventing the journalists from filing an appeal.
“L’Oeil du Sahel”, a regional weekly that was launched in Maroua in 1998, is one of the few newspapers to appear in the region.
