(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Minister of Justice Robert Mbella Mbapé, RSF protested the sentencing of Daniel Atangana and Thierry Mbouza, journalists with the biweekly “Dikalo”, to six months in prison. The organisation asked that “the order against Daniel Atangana and Thierry Mbouza be annulled, and that, during the appeals process, they not receive […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Minister of Justice Robert Mbella Mbapé, RSF protested the sentencing of Daniel Atangana and Thierry Mbouza, journalists with the biweekly “Dikalo”, to six months in prison. The organisation asked that “the order against Daniel Atangana and Thierry Mbouza be annulled, and that, during the appeals process, they not receive prison sentences”. RSF recalled that in January 2000, the United Nations Human Rights Commission’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression asked all governments “to see to it that prison sentences are no longer passed for violations of press laws, except in cases of racist or discriminatory comments or calls to violence.”
According to information collected by RSF, on 18 July, the Yaoundé Court of First Instance sentenced the two journalists to six months in prison. Célestin Biake Difana, the publication’s editor, received a six-month suspended prison sentence. The three journalists are accused of publishing a memorandum, in November 1998, signed by eighty-one road hauliers, which compared their union to “a phantom structure led by one Pierre Simé which helps expatriate hauliers plunder Cameroon”.
